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CHRIST BLESSING LITTLE CHILDREN, 


Frontispiece, 



SUNDAY EVENINGS 


AT ELM RI DGE 


BY 


/ 


ELLA RODMAN CHURCH, 

Author of “Birds and their Ways,” “Flyers and 
Crawlers,” “ Flower-Talks at Elmridge,” 
“How TO Furnish a Home,” etc. 


0 



PHILADELPHIA : 

PRESBYTERIAN BOARD OF PUBLICATION 
AND SABBATH-SCHOOL WORK, 

1334 CHESTNUT STREET. 



COPYRIGHT, 1887, BY 

THE TRUSTEES OF THE 

PRESBYTERIAN BOARD OF PUBLICATION. 


ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. 


Westcott & Thomson, 
Siereotypers and Electrotypers, Philada. 


CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER I. 

PACK 

The First Child of the Bible 9 

CHAPTER II. 

The Wanderer 24 

CHAPTER III. 

The Child of Promise 38 

CHAPTER IV. 

The Favorite 46 

CHAPTER V. 

God’s Wonderful Providence 57 

CHAPTER VI. 

From a Hut to a Palace 77 

5 


6 


CONTENTS. 


\ 

CHAPTER VII. 

PAGE 

Despising the Riches of Egypt 92 

CHAPTER VIH. 

The Deliverer 112 

CHAPTER IX. 

Little Samuel 142 

CHAPTER X. 

Samuel the Prophet 158 

CHAPTER XI. 

The Young Shepherd 179 

CHAPTER XII. 

The Lord's Messenger 213 

CHAPTER XIII. 

The Star of Bethlehem 239 

CHAPTER XIV. 

The Childhood of Jesus 286 


ILLUSTRATIONS 


PAGB 

Christ Blessing Little Children .... Frontispiece . 

Eastern Tents 14 

Abraham ... 7 17 

Hagar and Ishmael 35 

Offering Isaac 42 

Joseph Sold 54 

Joseph in Prison 61 

Finding the Child Moses 78 

Brick-making 99 

The Child Samuel 146 

Samuel and Eli 147 

The Ark of the Covenant 159 

The Tabernacle 160 

Shepherd-Boy 181 

David Anointed 188 

David’s Harp 191 

David and Goliath 197 

Elijah Fed by Ravens . . 225 

7 


8 ILL US TRA TIONS. 

PAGE 

Elijah taken to Heaven 227 

John the Baptist Preaching 231 

Burial of John Baptist 237 

Bethlehem 245 

Star of Bethlehem 250 

The Infant Jesus 253 

The Magi and the Child Jesus 261 

Nazareth 282 


Sunday Evenings at Elmridge. 


CHAPTER I. 

THE FIRST CHILD OF THE BIBLE. 

S UNDAY evening was always a pleas- 
ant occasion at Elmridge. Miss Har- 
son had then what she called her home 
Sunday-school, but it was really talks about 
the Bible and Bible-places, just like the 
talks they had about so many other things 
on weekday afternoons and evenings. The 
children loved this Sunday-evening hour, 
and they understood more about God’s 
word wEen their governess explained it 
to them so clearly and reverently, and 
made it so interesting, too, than they could 
learn in any other way. 

“The Bible,” said Miss Harson, “is in- 
tended for all — rich and poor, learned and 

9 


lO SUNDAY EVENINGS AT ELM RIDGE. 

ignorant, old and young, alike — and, besides 
telling us what to do, it contains stories or 
examples of men, women and children, 
some of whom we are to take as patterns 
for our own lives and others as warnings. 
Good and bad are both described, and we 
are told that these things were all written 
for our profit.'' 

“But the people in the Bible are all so 
old. Miss Harson !" said Clara. “ They 
lived so many years ago, and we are so 
little, that I don't see how we can be like 
them." 

“Their living so many years ago does 
not make them any older," replied her 
governess, smiling, “ though some of them 
were very old, because they had lived a 
great many years. But I think you can 
remember some Bible characters who were 
not so old — or, at least, who are mentioned 
in the Scriptures when they were children." 

“There is little Samuel," said Malcolm 
who had always dearly loved to hear about 
the child-prophet. 

“And Moses," said Clara, thinking of the 
little Hebrew baby in the bulrushes. 


THE FIRST CHILD OF THE BIBLE. 1 1 

“And the Christ- child,” added little Edith, 
in a low voice. 

“Yes, dear; the blessed Christ-child is 
sure to be in our thoughts at this Christ- 
mas season. Would that his holy presence 
were with us always ! Besides Samuel and 
Moses and the child Jesus, we read in the 
Bible of Ishmael and Isaac, Joseph, David, 
John the Baptist, the little captive maid 
through whom the great Syrian captain was 
cured of his leprosy, the little children who 
were murdered by the cruel Herod soon 
after our Saviour’s birth, the daughter of 
Jairus, whom the Lord Jesus raised from 
the dead, and the little ones whom he took 
in his arms and blessed.” 

“ I didn’t know there were so many,” said 
Malcolm, in surprise. 

“ None of us think over what we read 
and hear read from the Bible so carefully 
as we should do, or we would remember 
better. Many of these children are only 
just mentioned in the Scriptures, and we 
know nothing of their history ; while, of the 
few whose stories are given, Ishmael, Isaac, 
Joseph, Moses, Samuel and David belong 


1 2 SUNDA Y E VENINGS A T ELMRIDGE. 

to the Old Testament and were all born 
and died many hundred years before our 
Saviour came to live on earth. Before the 
time of Samuel people lived almost entirely 
in tents and moved about from place to 
place with their flocks and herds, and this 
way of living was called ‘ pastoral life.’ It 
was a very simple and happy life, and some 
of the sweetest Bible stories are taken from 
it. 

“ But those children who lived so many 
hundred, and even thousand, years ago 
had no Bible and knew nothing of the 
blessed Saviour. Many things were done 
then even by good people which would be 
very wrong now, and all around them were 
heathen nations who worshiped idols in- 
stead of the one true God. 

“ All this seems very sad, but even then 
there were good and holy men, as well as 
children, who tried to do what was right ; 
and when we read about their strange lives, 
we may learn many lessons from them of 
faith and patience and forgiveness of inju- 
ries. For the God whom they worshiped 
is our God, and, whether in the Eastern 


THE FIRST CHILD OF THE BIBLE. 1 3 

wilderness, the smiling plain, the lonely 
forest or the crowded city — thousands of 
years ago as now, in all times and places — 
he is ‘ the same yesterday, to-day and for 
ever.’ 

“ The first child of whom we have any 
account in the Bible,” continued Miss Har- 
son, “ is Ishmael, the son of Abraham and 
Hagar — that is, the first of whom we have 
any account as a child, for many children 
had been born before him. 

“ Ishmael’s father was a very good man 
— so good that he is called in the Bible 
* the friend of God he was also ‘ very rich 
in cattle, in silver and in gold.’ His name 
was at first ‘ Abram,’ afterward changed to 
‘ Abraham ;’ and when he was seventy-five 
years old, God directed him to leave his 
country and his friends and go to a land 
which should be shown him, promising to 
make of him a great nation and to bless 
him and to make his name great, and that 
in him all the families of the earth should 
be blessed. 

“ This good man obeyed God in all 
things, not stopping to think whether he 


14 • SUNDAY EVENINGS AT ELMRIDGE. 

liked it or not, and we shall see that after- 
ward God gave him something to do that 
was very much harder than leaving his 
home for a strange country. 

“The tents which people lived in then 
could easily be taken apart and carried 



EASTERN TENTS. 


away. They were made very much like 
the summer tents in our own country — by 
setting poles or stakes in the ground and 
stretching over them a covering of cloth or 
of skin, which was fastened by cords to 
short stakes around the edge. Sometimes 
the tents were very large and divided into 


THE FIRST CHILD OF THE BIBLE. 15 

rooms by curtains ; they were also made 
more comfortable by mats or carpets on 
the ground. The door was a hanging of 
cloth which could be raised when persons 
would pass out or in. 

“ Several of these tents were sometimes 
grouped together for different members of 
a family, and they were often very hand- 
somely furnished and ornamented. Abra- 
ham’s tents were probably of this kind, but 
people who live in fine modern houses 
would have thought that there was very 
little in them. They had but few cooking- 
utensils in those days, and so little furni- 
ture of any kind that moving was quite 
an easy thing. 

“ The tent was taken down and bound 
together, making a long, narrow bundle ; 
the household things were made into other 
bundles, and then they were all piled on 
the backs of the patient camels, that an- 
swered the purpose of carts. Women and 
children were placed on other camels — 
great, awkward creatures that seemed so 
high above the ground, and with backs like 
mountains; then, with the bondsmen or ser- 


l6 SUNDAY EVENINGS AT ELMRIDGE. 

vants driving the flocks and herds, they all 
set forth.’^ 

This seemed to the little Kyles a most 
delightful way of moving, and even timid 
Edith envied the Hebrew children their 
ride on a camel’s back. 

“ Perhaps you would not like it quite so 
well if you really had to try it,” replied 
their governess, “but these little ones in 
the far East were quite accustomed to it. 
The people of those countries would often 
move from one place to another to find 
fresh pasture for their sheep and camels, 
but Abraham left his home in Hebron, with 
his wife and nephew, without knowing why, 
except that God had commanded it. He 
stopped for a while in different places, and 
everywhere he built an altar and called 
upon the name of the Lord. But all the 
people among whom he lived were wor- 
shipers of idols. 

“We are told that ‘Abram dwelled in 
the land of Canaan,’ but Lot, his nephew, 
had now left him and gone in another di- 
rection, because they had so many flocks 
and herds to be fed on the scant pasture 


THE FIRST CHILD OF THE BIBLE. 


/ 



AHRAHAM. 

that they could not dwell together. Then 
the Lord appeared again to Abram and 
2 


1 8 SUNDA V E VENINGS A T ELMRIDGE. 

told him that as far as he could see in all 
directions he would give him the land, and 
to his seed, or descendants, for ever. These 
descendants, too, should be so many that 
they could not be counted any more than 
the sand of the sea. ‘Then Abram re- 
moved his tent, and came and dwelt in 
the plain of Mamre, which is in Hebron, 
and built there an altar unto the Lord.' 
This altar is said to have been made in 
an oak-grove not far from the town where 
Abram pitched his tent. Hebron is at the 
very end of the Holy Land — so called be- 
cause of God’s frequent presence there, 
and also because it is the place where our 
Saviour spent the years of his earthly life — 
and there was plenty of pasturage there 
on the hillsides, and there were many olive 
trees and vineyards. It was considered an 
old town in Abraham’s time, and it is now 
one of the most interesting places men- 
tioned in sacred history. 

“ Abram prospered in Hebron, where 
‘ he had sheep and oxen, and he-asses, and 
men-servants and maid-servants, and she- 
asses and camels.’ He had also a beauti- 


THE FIRST CHILD OF THE BIBLE. 1 9 

ful wife, whom he loved very much, but he 
had no child. In those days not having a 
child was thought a great misfortune, and, 
although neither Abram nor Sarah com- 
plained of it, we know from their happiness 
when a child at last came to them that 
this was the dearest wish of their hearts. 
Around them there was a great camp of 
bondmen and their families, and the shouts 
and laughter of the little slave-children were 
heard all day long, while only the large, 
grand tent in the centre was silent.” 

“Why didn’t they adopt a child. Miss 
Harson,” said Clara, “and bring it up for 
their very own ?” 

“We shall see what they did do,” was 
the reply. “ Abraham and his wife were 
now old people — ‘well stricken in years,’ 
the Bible says — and they had seen two or 
three generations of children that belonged 
to other people grow up to be men and 
women. But God had told Abram that he 
would make of him a great nation, and that 
his seed should be as numerous as the stars 
of heaven. ‘And he believed in the Lord ; 
and he counted it to him for righteousness.’ 


20 SUNDAY EVENINGS AT ELMRIDGE. 

“Abram held fast his belief in God’s 
promise, but Sarah had given up all hope 
that any child of hers would ever smile on 
them now ; and, probably with tears of dis- 
appointment, because they had hoped so 
long in vain, she begged Abram to take 
another wife, meaning her own maid-ser- 
vant, Hagar, so that if God should give 
them a child, Sarah could call it hers. 

“ It was a strange custom among God’s 
people in those days that a man could have 
several wives if he wanted them ; and when 
Sarah urged him to do so, Abram took 
Hagar also for his wife. Hagar was an 
Egyptian woman and a slave, and she did 
not behave well after she was raised to this 
high position. She- began to think that 
God’s promises to Abram would be ful- 
filled through her instead of through Sarah, 
and it is said that ‘her mistress was de- 
spised in her eyes.’ The high-spirited Sarah 
— which name means ‘ princess ’ — did not 
forget that she was her mistress still, and, 
provoked by such ungrateful conduct, she 
made Hagar feel that, after all, she was 
only a bondwoman, and treated her with 


THE FIRST CHILD OF THE BIBLE. 


21 


great severity. Abram had told her, when 
she complained to him, that she could do 
as she liked with Hagar because she was 
her waiting-maid; and at last Hagar could 
bear it no longer, but ran away toward 
Egypt, her native country. 

“ Very weary and unhappy was the slave- 
wife as she threw herself down by the 
fountain of water in the wilderness of 
Shur. There the angel of the Lord found 
her, for he was sent to reprove and en- 
courage her. Hagar was one of the means 
by which God meant to carry out his great 
purposes, and the first words of the heav- 
enly messenger reminded the maid-servant 
of her proper place and her duty, for he 
said, ‘ Hagar, Sarai’s maid, whence earnest 
thou ? and whither wilt thou go ? And she 
said, I flee from the face of my mistress, 
Sarai. And the angel of the Lord said 
unto her. Return to thy mistress, and sub- 
mit thyself under her hands.’ 

“Then the wonderful promise that God 
had made to Abram was made by the an- 
gel to Hagar through the son whom she 
would have. He said that the son was to 


22 SUNDAY EVENINGS AT ELM RIDGE. 

be named ‘ Ishmael,’ that he should be a 
wild man, and that his hand should be 
against every man and every man’s hand 
against him. 

“The words ‘Thou God seest me,’ so 
often given to the little ones to learn both 
because they are so easy and because they 
are so important to remember, were first 
spoken by Hagar in her surprise that God 
should find her in that lonely place. The 
Egyptian gods were neither seen nor heard, 
for they were only carved images — they 
did not speak to men in any way — but the 
God of Abram knew her and called her 
by name ; and ever after that the place 
where she had seen this wonderful vision 
was called ‘ Beer-lahai-roi,” which means, 
‘The well of the Living One who seeth 
me, and of seeing.’ 

“ Hagar immediately obeyed the mes- 
sage of the angel, and returned to her mis- 
tress. When her child was born, Abram 
gave him the name which God had com- 
manded. Abram was eighty-six years old 
at this time, and Sarah was only ten years 
younger, and the old people rejoiced great- 


THE FIRST CHILD OF THE BIBLE. 23 

ly that at last a child had come to them. 
Hagar was forgiven, and for a time all 
went on in peace and harmony at the camp 
of the great patriarch.” 


CHAPTER II. 


THE WANDERER. 

“ T SN’T there more about Ishmael, Miss 
X Harson ?” asked Edith, on the next 
Sunday evening, when they were cozily 
settled around the fire. 

“ I hope so, dear,” was the smiling reply, 
“ for there has been nothing about him yet 
except the mere fact of his birth. And in 
learning more about him we shall soon 
come to his brother Isaac, who was the 
real ‘child of promise.’ 

“ God talked many times with his faith- 
ful and obedient friend Abram, for there 
was no written word then ; and when Ish- 
mael was about four years old, the Lord 
appeared to Abraham again, and said that 
the divine blessing should rest upon the 
child of Hagar, and that he should be the 
founder of a great nation. 

24 


THE WANDERER. 


25 


“ This child had become very dear to 
Abraham — whose name had been changed 
to mean ‘father of a multitude ’ — for he sup- 
posed him to be the only son he would 
ever have, and that through him God 
would keep his promise of making him 
the father of many nations and of kings. 

“ Abraham ‘ fell on his face,’ or pros- 
trated himself on the ground, while God 
talked with him ; and it was then that the 
land of Canaan was promised to the Jews, 
who were Abraham’s descendants, for an 
everlasting possession. God also renewed 
his former promise, as though Ishmael had 
not been born ; and when Abraham heard 
that Sarah — whose name had been changed 
from ‘Sarai’ — was to be the mother of na- 
tions and kings, it is said that he laughed 
at the idea of a child of theirs being born 
then, for he was a hundred years old and 
Sarah was ninety. Besides, there was Ish- 
mael, whom he loved so much : what would 
become of him if another child took his 
place ? 

“‘And Abraham said unto God, Oh that 
Ishmael might live before thee !’ God told 


26 SUNDAY EVENINGS AT ELMRIDGE. 

him that it should really be the son of Sa- 
rah, his wife, who would bring him all the 
honor he had promised him, and that he 
must call his name ‘Isaac/ To Ishmael 
also he promised blessings, saying that he 
should be the father of twelve princes and 
of a great nation. But God’s especial cove- 
nant was made with Isaac, whose birth was 
foretold in a year from that time. 

“ Ishmael was the first child who was cir- 
cumcised, according to a Jewish rite that 
was observed in giving a child to God, 
one that God commanded when he made 
this second covenant with Abraham. 

“ Again we are told that as the patriarch 
Abraham sat in his tent door in the heat 
of the day ‘ the Lord appeared unto him.’ 
But Abraham saw with his eyes three trav- 
elers standing by him, and, with a kind 
desire that they should rest and refresh 
themselves, he ‘bowed himself toward the 
ground ’ and begged them to accept the 
Eastern hospitality of washing their feet 
and resting under a tree. He also offer- 
ed them ‘a morsel of bread,’ which really 
meant fresh cakes baked upon the hearth, 


THE WANDERER. 


V 


and ‘a calf tender and good,’ with milk and 
butter. The men consented and ate the 
repast, while Abraham stood by them un- 
der the tree. 

“ Presently, the strangers asked, ‘ Where 
is Sarah, thy wife ?’ and Abraham re- 
plied, ‘ Behold, in the tent for it was not 
the custom for the lady of the house to 
appear before visitors. 

“Then it is the Lord who speaks and 
promises to Sarah a child of her own. 
But Sarah laughed to herself at what seemed 
so very improbable, when she was ninety 
years old ; and the idea of so old a mother 
with so young a child appeared very unnat- 
ural. She was frightened, however, when 
the Lord asked Abraham why she laughed, 
saying, ‘ Is anything too hard for the Lord?’ 
and in her fright Sarah denied that she 
had laughed, but promptly came the calm 
reply, ‘ Nay ; but thou didst laugh.’ 

“ Sarah must have thought, like Hagar, 
‘Thou God seest me;’ for the curtain or 
door of the tent was down, and she was 
listening behind it to what these strange 
visitors were saying to her husband. But 


28 SUNDAY EVENINGS AT ELMRIDGE. 

all things are known to Him who made the 
world and all that is in it. 

“After this, Abraham moved from He- 
bron, where he had lived for fifteen years, 
and settled in Beersheba. Here, notwith- 
standing Sarah’s unbelief, the promised 
child was born at the time which God had 
appointed, and he was named ‘ Isaac.’ This 
meant ‘ a son of laughter,’ for his mother 
had laughed when the promise was given, 
and she now laughed again in rejoicing; 
for she said, ‘ God hath made me to laugh, 
so that all that hear will laugh with me.’ 

“ Abraham was a hundred years old when 
his son Isaac was born, and great feasting 
and gladness welcomed the child of prom- 
ise, the true heir, who had come at last. 
All through the great camp rang the joy- 
ful tidings, and wondering kinsmen and 
servants hastened to welcome the little 
one whom God had given to that aged 
couple.” 

“ What became of poor little Ishmael ?” 
asked Malcolm. “ Did no one care about 
him any more?” 

“ Nothing is said in the Scriptures of him 


THE WANDERER. 


29 


at this time,” replied Miss Harson, “ but he 
must have been fourteen years old when 
Isaac was born, and all those years he had 
been looked upon as the only child of the 
great Hebrew chieftain, and treated by all 
his father’s servants as their young master. 
He was the one hope of the family, and 
was probably indulged and spoiled as an 
old man’s darling. Both he and his moth- 
er, no doubt, felt that his place was secure, 
and that no other child would ever be born 
to Abraham. 

“ It was a sad thing for Ishmael, as it so 
often is for other children, to be the only 
child for so many years, for it made him, as 
we shall see, selfish and envious ; and when 
little Isaac came, the real prince, to claim 
his own, the poor lad was speedily set 
aside. He was only a slave then, like his 
mother, and could no longer put on lordly 
airs among the other bondsmen ; probably 
they only laughed at him when he did, and 
told him that he was now one of them- 
selves. Poor boy ! we can imagine how 
hurt and angry he must have felt.” 

“And I don’t believe he loved the little 


30 S[/NDAY EVENINGS AT ELMRIDGE. 

baby a bit,” said Edith, who thought this 
very dreadful. 

“I am afraid not, dear; for even had Ish- 
mael at first cared for his little brother, he 
was soon turned against him by seeing 
every one bow down to Isaac, while he 
was neoflected, and hearino- on all sides 
praises of the fair, plump boy, while he 
was probably thin and dark like the Arabs, 
his descendants of the present day. Be- 
sides, Isaac was only a helpless infant, 
while Ishmael was a strong, well-grown 
lad, so the two could not be companions ; 
and, instead of love, the elder brother had 
feelings of jealousy and disappointment. 

“Ishmael’s wild, passionate nature, which 
he inherited from his mother, was proba- 
bly wrought up to a sense of bitter-injury 
as he saw his baby-brother in the place 
which he had so long occupied, and very 
likely real neglect was added to his fancied 
wrongs ; for Abraham and Sarah were 
naturally taken up with this wonderful 
child who was born to them so entirely 
out of the common order of things that 
he seemed like a miraculous gift from 


THE WANDERER. 3 1 

God, and Ishmael, the bondwoman’s son, 
was scarcely thought of now. 

“The alien lad who had sprung up in 
this strange household was not a pleasant 
or an amiable boy, and at the feast which 
was made on the weaning of Isaac he was 
seen mocking. Perhaps he had sulkily 
kept aloof from the gay scene, or his pres- 
ence there may have been forbidden. At 
any rate, he could see what was going on, 
and the sight of the brother who had 
turned him out of his place dressed in the 
finest clothes and the one object of interest 
to the admiring guests was more than Ish- 
mael could bear, and Sarah saw him mock- 
ing. Whether he mocked at Isaac takinor 
his first uncertain steps, perhaps with the 
help of ready hands, or at the aged mother, 
proud and triumphant at a feast which she 
had never expected to see, we are not told; 
but we can fancy the dark, angry boy stand- 
ing there with his feelings expressed in his 
swarthy face as he makes gestures or utters 
words of derision, and the stately mistress 
of the feast, roused and angry too, order- 
ing the impertinent boy out of her sight. 


3 2 SUNDA Y E VENINGS A T ELM RID GE. 

His fate is sealed now, for the indignant 
mother goes at once to Abraham with the 
stern demand, ‘ Cast out this bondwoman 
and her son ; for the son of this bondwo-. 
man shall not be heir with my son, even 
with Isaac.’ 

“ Perhaps Abraham had intended to give 
Ishmael the same portion of his wealth, if 
not of his love, that Isaac would have, but 
Sarah was now resolved that this should 
never be, for she could not bear the sight 
of Ishmael or his mother. ‘And the thing 
was very grievous in Abraham’s sight be- 
cause of his son.’ It seemed to him cruel 
and unnatural to turn out of his house the 
boy who called him ‘ father,’ and who had for 
so long a time been dear to him as his only 
child ; besides, God had made wonderful 
promises for Ishmael as well as for Isaac. 
Hagar, too, if a bondwoman, was also his 
wife and the mother of his child, and it was 
very hard to do as Sarah required and cast 
mother and child forth from his home and 
his heart. It was really better, however, for 
Ishmael to go away from the place where he 
had lived as heir, but of which he was heir no 


THE WANDERER. 


33 


longer, and begin the new life for which he 
was intended. His home was to be in the 
desert as an archer and huntsman, and it 
was time for him now to practice with the 
bow and learn something of the hardships 
he would have to endure. Besides, his en- 
vious, bitter feelings would only grow worse 
from the constant sight of Isaac and of all 
that he himself had lost, while his gentle 
little half brother might be injured by his 
ill-temper. 

‘‘ The troubled father saw this when God 
spoke to him in his distress and comforted 
him with the gracious words : ‘ Let it not 
be grievous in thy sight because of the lad, 
and because of thy bondwoman ; in all that 
Sarah hath said unto thee, hearken unto her 
voice ; for in Isaac shall thy seed be called. 
And also of the son of the bondwoman will 
I make a nation, because he is thy seed.’ 

“ The very next day Hagar and Ishmael 
were sent away, and we are told that Abra- 
ham rose up early in the morning, perhaps 
to do it more privately. With only some 
bread and a bottle of water — one of the 
bottles made of skins such as still are used 


34 SUNDAY EVENINGS AT ELMRIDGE. 

in the East — they went forth into the wil- 
derness of Beersheba. Here the weary 
mother and child wandered until ‘the 
water was spent in the bottle ; and she 
cast the child under one of the shrubs. 
And she went and sat her down over 
against him, a goodly way off, as it were 
a bowshot : for she said. Let me not see 
the death of the child. And she sat over 
against him and lifted up her voice and 
wept.’ ” 

The children were looking at an en- 
graving that Miss Harson showed them 
of Hagar and Ishmael in the wilderness, 
and they were very much surprised to find 
that Ishmael was made such a little boy. 

“All the pictures I have seen,” said their 
governess, “represent him as much younger 
than he really was, for by this time he must 
have been fifteen or sixteen years old. The 
Bible account, too, of Hagar’s casting the 
boy under one of the shrubs does not give 
the idea of nearly so old a lad. He cried, 
too, like any young child, for ‘ God heard 
the voice of the lad ; and the angel of God 
called to Hagar out of heaven, and said 


THE WANDERER. 


35 



hold him in diine hand ; for I will make 
him a great nation.’ God then opened Ha- 
gar’s eyes, and she saw a well of water and 


unto her, What aileth thee, Hagar ? Fear 
not ; for God hath heard the voice of the 
lad where, he is. Arise, lift up the lad and 


HAGAR AND ISHMAEL. 


36 SUNDAY EVENINGS AT ELMRIDGE. 

saved her child’s life. ‘And God was with 
the lad ; and he grew, and dwelt in the wil- 
derness, and became an archer.’ . 

“ The only other thing that we know of 
Ishmael is that ‘ his mother took him a wife 
out of the land of Egypt,’ of her own coun- 
try-people ; but the angel’s prophecy of 
him was fulfilled, for he became ‘a wild 
man ’ when he dwelt in the wilderness, and 
the wandering Arab tribes all trace their 
descent from him. 

“ Hagar and Ishmael were severely pun- 
ished for their jealous envy, and only God’s 
promise to Abraham prevented them from 
perishing from hunger and thirst ; but a 
good man will bring blessings on all con- 
nected with him.” 

“ It doesn’t seem to me it was very good,” 
said Clara, “to send them away in the wil- 
derness to starve.” 

“ Remember, dear,” was the reply, “ that 
this was done in obedience to God’s com- 
mand, and, however strange it may seem 
to us, we are sure to be right when we 
follow the divine Guide. It is often hard to 
' understand God’s dealings, but we are told 


THE WANDERER, 


37 


in the holy word that what we know not 
now we shall know hereafter.” 

“ How plain you make it all, Miss Har- 
son !” said Malcolm, admiringly. “ It seems 
now as if Ishmael might have been a real 
boy living somewhere near us, and there 
are so many things about him that I never 
thought of before.” 

“Yes,” added Clara, “ I never felt so well 
acquainted with Ishmael as with other chil- 
dren in the Bible, but now he seems just as 
interesting as any one.” 

But Edith said she liked the little baby 
better, and she could scarcely wait until 
next Sunday evening to hear about Isaac. 


CHAPTER III. 


THE CHILD OF PROMISE. 

R ten years,” said Miss Harson, 



“ the patriarch and his family lived 
happily in their beautiful home at Beer- 
sheba, while the fair boy whose birth 
seemed like a miracle increased in strength 
and loveliness every year. 

“We read nothing of Isaac's childhood 
until that terrible day when his perfect 
obedience to his father was like Abra- 
ham’s obedience to God, but that he was 
a particularly gentle and lovable child 
there can be no doubt. The almost wor- 
shiped son of aged parents, whose hopes 
all centred in him — the child set apart by 
God as. the subject of wonderful promises 
— he seems yet to have been quite un- 
spoiled, and to have lived in perfect sub- 
mission to his father and his mother. 

“ The favored child grew up amid scenes 


38 


THE CHILD OF PROMISE. 39 

of peaceful beauty. The wide spaces of 
pasture-ground were brightened with the 
gayest flowers ; the cheerful tinkle of 
sheep-bells was heard as the flocks scat- 
tered to find their daily food ; the ungainly 
camels, that looked like moving mountains, 
would lazily crop the herbage ; the way- 
farer would pause on his journey to be fed 
and refreshed, and would be sent on his 
way rejoicing; morning and evening the 
head of the family would gather all be- 
longing to him around the family altar, 
that they might there 

“ ‘ The God of Abram praise, 

Who reigns enthroned above — 

Ancient of everlasting days. 

And God of love,’ 

“ Sharp and sudden came the dreadful 
summons : ‘ Take now thy son, thine only 
son Isaac, whom thou lovest, and get thee 
into the land of Moriah ; and offer him 
there for a burnt-offering upon one of the 
mountains which I will tell thee off.’ 

“ There is not a word in the Bible of the 
aged patriarch’s horror and despair at the 
thought of parting with his beloved child 


40 SUNDAY EVENINGS AT ELMRIDGE, 

in such a terrible way, no mention of his 
questioning God’s goodness in thus break- 
ing the solemn covenant he had made with 
him — no hesitation, not even a murmur. 
Nor is anything said of the poor mother’s 
anguish, but Abraham doubtless kept the 
dreadful knowledge from her until all 
should be over. He told no one of what 
he was about to do, and it was not thought 
an unusual thing that the pious father 
should take his son on a short journey for 
some act of worship. But as the patriarch 
went through his numerous flocks for the 
last time before going to the dreaded 
mountain, how gladly would he have offered 
this large portion of his wealth in one great 
sacrifice could Isaac but have been spared ! 
But God did not ask him for sheep or for 
goats ; he said, ‘ Take now thy son, thine 
only son Isaac, whom thou lovest;’ and 
Abraham must obey, though it was like 
taking his own life.” 

“ Oh,” exclaimed Clara, as she and Edith 
were fairly sobbing, while Malcolm looked 
very much like it, “how could he. Miss 
Harson ? how could he ?” 


THE CHILD OF PROMISE. 4 1 

“It is all over now, dear children,” re- 
plied their governess, affectionately, “ and 
we know that Isaac was not really sacri- 
ficed. But a far greater sacrifice than 
even that would have been was really 
made on the cross when our Saviour died, 
and, although Abraham’s son was spared, 
the Son of God was allowed to die in our 
stead that we might live for ever in heaven. 
Let us remember this when we read the 
touching story of Isaac’s obedience, for 
he is in some sense a type of Christ.” 

The little girls had drawn very close 
while Miss Harson was speaking, and 
Malcolm was in his favorite position at 
her feet. To them there was no one so 
good and sweet as their dear Miss Har- 
son. 

“When they had come to Mount Mo- 
riah,” continued the young lady, “Abra- 
ham said to his servants, ‘Abide ye here 
with the ass, and I and the lad will go 
yonder and worship, and come again to 
you.’ With the wood for the burnt-offer- 
ing laid upon Isaac, and the fire and a 
knife in Abraham’s hand, ‘ they went both 


42 SUNDAY EVENINGS AT ELMRIDGE. 

of them together.’ Like a knife to the 
father’s heart must have been his boy’s 
innocent question, ‘ Where is the lamb for 
a burnt-offering ?’ ‘ And Abraham said, 

My son, God will provide himself a lamb 
for a burnt-offering: so they went both 
of them together.’ 

“ Carefully and reverently Abraham built 



OFFERING ISAAC. 


the altar and placed the wood in order and 
bound Isaac his son and laid him upon the 
wood on the altar. The voice of the lad 
was not heard, as when Ishmael thirsted in 
the wilderness ; he was perhaps stunned 
with the suddenness of his fate, but obedi- 
ent to the last. There was nothing more 
to do ; God would have this terrible sac- 
rifice from his servant; ‘and Abraham 


THE CHILD DF PROMISE. 43 

Stretched forth his hand and took the 
knife to slay his son.’ ” 

“ Oh !” shuddered the children. 

“This was enough, for God was only 
testing his servant — trying his obedience 
to see how far it would go — and he now 
saw that it would go to the end of all that 
was most dear to him. But the child of 
promise was not to be sacrificed, and just 
at this dreadful moment, when all seemed 
lost, the angel of the Lord called to Abra- 
ham out of heaven, and said, ‘ Lay not thine 
hand upon the lad, neither do thou any- 
thing unto him ; for now I know that thou 
fearest God, seeing thou hast not withheld 
thy son, thine only son, from me. And 
Abraham lifted up his eyes and looked, and 
behold, behind him a ram caught in a 
thicket by his horns : and Abraham went 
and took the ram and offered him up for 
a burnt- offering in the stead of his son.’ ” 
“ Oh,” gasped Edith, as though she had 
never heard the story before, “ I’m so 
glad !” 

“With happy tears, we may well imag- 
ine, was the beloved child lifted from the 


44 SUNDAY EVENINGS AT ELM RIDGE, 

dreadful pile and pressed close to his father’s 
heart, while Isaac, pale and nearly lifeless 
from terror, was conscious of nothing but 
the shelter of his father’s arms. Again 
‘ they went both of them together,’ but this 
time it was down instead of up the fearful 
mountain, while behind them the smoke of 
the burnt-offering rose up to heaven. 

“ And the angel of the Lord called unto 
Abraham out of heaven the second time, 
and said, ‘By myself have I sworn, saith the 
Lord, for because thou hast done this thing, 
and hast not withheld thy son, thine only 
son : that in blessing I will bless thee, and 
in multiplying I will multiply thy seed as 
the stars of the heaven, and as the sand 
which is upon the seashore ; and thy seed 
shall possess the gate of his enemies ; and 
in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth 
be blessed; because thou hast obeyed my 
voice.’ 

“ And now,” asked Miss Harson, “ what 
do we learn from this beautiful story of 
Isaac ?” 

“ Obedience ?” said Malcolm. 

“Yes; the lessons of faith and obedience 


THE CHILD OF PROMISE. 45 

are taught us both by Abraham and by his 
son, for Isaac reverenced his parents while 
they lived and honored them in death, and 
his long and happy life grew out of a beau- 
tiful, loving childhood. God’s promises to 
him and his descendants were fulfilled in 
many ways, but the greatest and best of all 
was in the coming of the Saviour, which 
is prophesied in the words, ‘And in thy 
seed shall all the nations of the earth be 
blessed.’ ” 


CHAPTER IV. 


THE FAVORITE. 

S UNDAY evening was now looked for- 
ward to by the little Kyles with great 
interest, and they had wondered among 
themselves what Bible child Miss Harson 
would tell them about next. They had 
very generally fixed upon Moses, and they 
were quite surprised when their governess 
said, 

“ Joseph, the grandson of Isaac, is the 
next child — or, rather, lad — mentioned in 
the Bible ; for he is seventeen years old 
when the trouble and jealousy between 
him and his brothers are spoken of. Like 
his grandfather, Joseph was born after his 
mother had given up the hope of having a 
son, and ‘ Israel loved Joseph more than all 
his children because he was the son of his 
old age : and he made him a coat of many 
colors.’ 


46 


THE FAVORITE. 


47 


“Israel, or Jacob, had many other chil- 
dren besides Joseph, but he had loved Jo- 
seph s mother better than his other wives, 
and, now that she was dead, he loved her 
son better than his other sons. These were 
all grown men, but they were wicked and 
disobedient, and because of their bad con- 
duct their father resolved to make Joseph 
his heir ; and he dressed him in a peculiar 
coat, that every one might know his inten- 
tion. This coat had long, wide sleeves to 
show that Joseph was to do no work, but 
that he was to be considered the gentleman 
of the family. This made Joseph’s older 
brothers jealous and envious : the coat 
of many colors set him apart from them, 
and they were very angry to see one so 
much younger than themselves put above 
them in this way. Why should he, they 
asked, be treated better than they were ?” 

“ Well, Miss Harson,” said Malcolm, “ I 
should think they would be mad.” 

“ Mad ” was a favorite expression with 
Malcolm, and his governess smiled at this 
frank remark as she replied, 

“ It is never right to exalt one child in a 


48 SUNDAY EVENINGS AT ELMRIDGE. 

family over the others, and it is almost sure 
to produce unkind feelings. 

“Joseph suffered very much from his 
father s partiality, for we are told that be- 
cause of it his brethren hated him and 
could not speak peaceably unto him. Be- 
sides this, the boy had told his father of his 
brothers’ ill conduct when he was helping 
them feed the flock ; for Israel, like Abra- 
ham, was rich in sheep and cattle, and this 
kind of wealth requires a great deal of 
care. 

“ Perhaps the favorite child showed the 
effects of over-indulgence, for he was only 
a lad, and, although the wickedness of his 
brothers’ conduct toward him was without 
excuse, he did much to make them an- 
gry. Among other things, he boasted of a 
strange dream that he had had, and which 
made him feel unduly important. Dreams 
were very much thought of in those days, 
for God often spoke to men in this way, be- 
cause there was then no Bible to tell them 
what he wished them to do. 

“Afterward, Joseph was saved from a 
great danger and released from prison 


THE FAVORITE. 


49 


through a dream, but now his own dreams 
only got him into fresh trouble. Very like- 
ly, with an air of superiority, he said to his 
elder brothers, ‘ Hear, I pray you, the 
dream which I have dreamed. For behold 
we were binding sheaves in the field, and 
lo, my sheaf arose and also stood upright : 
and behold your sheaves stood round about, 
and made obeisance to my sheaf.' 

“Very angry indeed were these grown 
men to hear such a dream as this, for it 
meant that the stripling whom they looked 
down upon as a child was to be their lord 
and master and they his humble servants, 
and they replied scornfully, ‘ Shalt thou in- 
deed reign over us ? or shalt thou indeed 
have dominion over us ?’ It is added that 
they hated their brother yet the more for 
his dreams and for his words. 

“Joseph afterward told them of a second 
dream, which made them even more angry 
than did the first. ‘ Behold,’ he said, ‘ I have 
dreamed a dream more; and behold the sun, 
and the moon, and the eleven stars made 
obeisance to me.’ 

“ Even Joseph’s father rebuked him now. 


50 SUNDAY EVENINGS AT ELMRIDGE. 

for this was going too far. The sun and 
the moon could only mean father and moth- 
er, while the eleven stars plainly represent- 
ed his eleven brothers ; and Israel sternly 
replied, ‘ What is this dream that thou hast 
dreamed ? Shall I and thy mother and thy 
brethren indeed come to bow down our- 
selves to thee to the earth ?’ 

“The brothers’ envy had now reached 
such a point of wickedness that they could 
not be satisfied without Joseph’s destruc- 
tion; and it is terrible to think that they 
had probably begun with feelings of anger 
and then gone on to unkind words ; then 
they fairly hated him, and finally wished to 
kill him. No wonder we are warned to 
keep the heart — keep it above all keeping 
— for out of it are the issues of life.” 

“ Weren’t they very wicked men ?” asked 
little Edith. 

“Yes, dear, but not more wicked than 
any of us might become if we gave way 
to evil thoughts and feelings ; and this 
must make us very careful not to encour- 
age the least little one. 

“Again Israel’s sons went to feed the 


THE FAVORITE. 


51 


flock, which was at a place called Shechem, 
and Joseph, who never seems to have sus- 
pected their evil feelings toward him, obey- 
ed his father’s directions and went to see 
how they were getting on. He did not find 
his brothers where he had expected to see 
them — probably because the grass had giv- 
en out there — and a man who met him 
wandering in the field, looking in vain for 
his brothers and their flocks, told him they 
had left that place and gone to Dothan. 
Joseph followed them there, but he was 
not greeted with any signs of pleasure. 
Scowling looks and harsh words met him ; 
for ‘ when they saw him afar off, even be- 
fore he came near unto them, they con- 
spired against him to slay him.’ ‘ Behold, 
this dreamer cometh !’ they exclaim ; and 
before he reached them they had made a 
plan to kill him and throw his body into a 
pit, and then to deceive their aged father 
with the falsehood, ‘ Some evil beast hath 
devoured him.’ 

“ But Reuben, the oldest of the brothers, 
would not consent to murder Joseph, and, 
although he probably did not love his young 


52 SUNDAY EVENINGS AT ELM RIDGE. 

brother and would have been glad to get 
rid of him, he pleaded for the helpless boy 
with his more wicked brothers, and said, 
‘Let us not kill him.’ Then he professed 
to tell them of a better plan : ‘ Shed no 
blood, but cast him into this pit that is in 
the wilderness, and lay no hand upon him.’ 
This was said only ‘ that he might rid him 
out of their hands, and deliver him to his 
father again and it is pleasant to find that 
one of the brothers, at least, had some nat- 
ural feeling. 

“Poor boy! how surprised and terrified 
he must have been to be roughly seized as 
soon as he came up to the brothers he had 
taken so much trouble to find, and stripped 
of his handsome coat — the ‘ coat of many 
colors,’ of which he was probably so proud I 
He may have thought that this indignity 
was all he had to suffer, and was, perhaps, 
turning to go to his father again with ‘ their 
evil report,’ quite sure that another coat of 
the same kind would soon be provided for 
him and that his teasing brothers would 
be rebuked for their rough conduct. But 
he was suddenly dragged to the mouth of 


THE FAVORITE. 


53 


a yawning pit and thrown into it, in spite 
of his cries and struggles.” 

One would scarcely think that the Kyle 
children had ever heard about Joseph be- 
fore, they were so very indignant at “ those 
horrid brothers,” and Edith hoped that the 
“ poor little boy ” would get out of the pit. 

“Fortunately,” continued Miss Harson, 
“ the pit was empty ; there was no water 
in it, or he would have been drowned. 
Probably in full hearing of his cries, the 
heartless brothers ‘ sat down to eat bread,* 
and while they were doing this a company 
of Ishmaelites — the wandering descendants 
of Ishmael — came from Gilead ‘ with their 
camels bearing spicery, and balm, and 
myrrh, going to carry it down to Egypt.’ 

“The passing of this caravan, with its 
merchandise, brought the idea of gain to 
the minds of Joseph’s brethren, and Judah, 
another of the older ones, said, ‘What 
profit is it if we slay our brother, and con- 
ceal his blood ? Come, and let us sell him 
to the Ishmaelites, and let not our hand be 
upon him ; for he is our brother and our 
flesh.’ 


54 SUNDAY EVENINGS AT ELMRIDGE. 



JOSEPH SOLD. 


“Reuben had left on some errand, or 
this wicked traffic would have been pre- 


THE FAVORITE. 


55 


vented; so Joseph was sold into bondage, 
and his unnatural brothers were richer by 
twenty pieces of silver.” 

“Think of our selling Edie!” exclaimed 
Malcolm as he held his little sister very 
closely. “ I used to get so mad when she 
was a baby, although I was a little fellow 
then, at people who asked me, ‘ What will 
you take for her ?’ ” 

“ And they didn’t care to buy her,” 
laughed his governess, “any more than 
you wished to sell her, for she was only 
a helpless baby ; but a lad of Joseph’s age 
could be made very useful.” 

“What did Reuben do about it. Miss 
Harson ?” asked Clara. “ Didn’t he care ?” 

“ ‘ And Reuben returned to the pit : and 
behold, Joseph was not in the pit ; and he 
rent his clothes. And he returned unto 
his brethren, and said. The child is not, and 
I, whither shall I go?’ He was very much 
troubled, and afraid to meet his father with- 
out the lad ; but the others killed a kid from 
the flock they were tending, and dipped 
Joseph’s coat in the blood. This was to de- 
ceive the father when he asked for his favor- 


56 SUNDAY EVENINGS AT ELM RIDGE. 

ite son ; and ‘ they sent the coat of many 
colors, and they brought it to their father 
and said, This have we found : know now 
whether it be thy son’s coat or no. And 
he knew it and said. It is my son’s coat ; 
an evil beast hath devoured him. Joseph 
is without doubt rent in pieces. And Jacob 
rent his clothes, and put sackcloth upon his 
loins, and mourned for his son many days. 
And all his sons and all his daughters rose 
up to comfort him ; but he refused to be 
comforted ; and he said. For I will go 
down into the grave unto my son, mourn- 
ing. Thus his father wept for him.’ ” 

“ How wicked the bad brothers must 
have felt!” said Clara. 

“Very beautiful and touching is the sim- 
ple Bible account of the old man’s grief, 
and it seems wonderful indeed that it did 
not melt the stony hearts of those who had 
caused it. But sin, persevered in, hardens 
the heart, and all feeling seems to be de- 
stroyed.” 

“Well,” said Malcolm, “we know that 
Joseph did see his father again, but it doesn’t 
seem now as if he ever would.” 


CHAPTER V. 

GOD^S WONDERFUL PROVIDENCE. 

O H,” said little Edith, when Sunday 
evening had come round again 
with its pleasant fireside “ talk,” “ please tell 
us where Joseph went next. Miss Harson. 
It’s so interesting !” 

This was a large word for Edith, and it 
caused the others to smile ; but her gover- 
ness replied kindly, 

“ He was taken into Egypt, dear, by the 
Midianites, and sold as a slave to Potiphar, 
an officer of King Pharaoh and captain of 
the guard. Egypt was then a very rich 
country, and its king was great and power- 
ful. Joseph had a rich and kind master, 
yet he was now a slave, with no power to 
resent any wrong that might be done him. 
But God was with him, and 


57 


58 SUNDAY EVENINGS AT ELM RIDGE. 

“ ‘ Who hath the Father and the Son 
May be left, but not alone.’ 

“After a while the rich and mighty cap- 
tain began to notice his humble serving- 
lad ; he saw that whatever he did was well 
done, and that he showed intelligence and 
judgment beyond his years. He did not 
resent being made a slave, as many would 
have done, when he was the son of a prince, 
by neglecting his duties and brooding sul- 
lenly over his troubles ; but he did what 
was given him to do in the best possible 
manner, and showed that he studied his 
master’s interest. ‘ And his master saw 
that the Lord was with him ; and that the 
Lord made all that he did to prosper in 
his hand. And Joseph found grace in his 
sight, and he served him ; and he made 
him overseer over his house, and all that 
he had he put into his hand.’ 

“God blessed, for Joseph’s sake, the 
Egyptian officer’s house and all that he 
had, and it is said that Potiphar’s trust in 
his overseer was so great that he did not 
even know what he had except the bread 
that he ate, for everything was in Joseph’s 


GOD^S WONDEI^FUL PROVIDENCE. 59 

hands. It must have been a great happi- 
ness to the young slave to be so honored 
and trusted; but, alas ! this pleasant state 
of things did not last long.” 

“Now something’s going to happen to 
him again r' said Clara, disconsolately. 

“ Yes ; the wife of Potiphar was a wicked 
woman, and, becoming angry at Joseph be- 
cause of his goodness, she gave a false 
account of him to his master ; and Potiphar, 
believing what she told him, took Joseph 
‘and put him into the prison, a place where 
the king’s prisoners were bound ; and he 
was there in the prison.’ 

“ This seemed bad enough, yet the keep- 
er of the prison took such a liking to the 
youth that all the other prisoners were put 
in his care, and things were much the same 
as they had been with Joseph while he was 
Potiphar’s overseer, ‘ because the Lord was 
with him : and that which he did, the Lord 
made it to prosper.’ 

‘After Joseph had been in prison for 
some time the king of Egypt became dis- 
pleased with his chief butler and his chief 
baker, and they were sent to the same 


6o SUNDAY EVENINGS AT ELMRIDGE. 

prison where Joseph was. The Hebrew 
slave was made their servant, for they 
were prisoners of rank, and he seems to 
have been as faithful to this charge as he 
was to the others. 

“On going in to attend to the butler and 
the baker one morning, Joseph found the 
new prisoners very much troubled by their 
dreams of the night before, and he asked 
them the reason of their sad looks. ‘ And 
they said unto him. We have dreamed a 
dream, and there is no interpreter of it. 
And Joseph said unto them. Do not inter- 
pretations belong to God? Tell me them, 
I pray you.* 

“The chief butler told his dream, and 
Joseph interpreted it to mean that he 
would be restored to favor and again hand 
Pharaoh the wine-cup as he had done be- 
fore. The poor Hebrew lad added be- 
seechingly, ‘ But think on me when it shall 
be well with thee, and show kindness, I 
pray thee, unto me, and make mention of 
me unto Pharaoh, and bring me out of this 
house. For, indeed I was stolen away 
out of the land of the Hebrews : and here 


GOD^S WONDERFUL PROVIDENCE. 6 1 



JOSKril IN PRISON. 


also have I done nothing that they should 
put me into the dungeon/ 

“The chief baker also told his dream to 


62 SUNDAY EVENINGS AT ELMRIDGE. 

Joseph, but the interpretation was that 
Pharaoh would put him to death. 

“ Both of these things came to pass just 
as the young slave had said, but he was 
still left in prison, for we are told, ‘Yet did 
not the chief butler remember Joseph, but 
forgat him.’ 

“Joseph was kept in prison for two long 
years, and he might have stayed there still 
longer had not the king taken to dreaming. 
Pharaoh’s dream was a very long and 
strange one, and he was much perplexed 
about it. He sent for all the magicians 
and wise men of Egypt to tell him what it 
meant, but this they could not do. Then 
the chief butler thought of Joseph, and he 
told the king how wonderfully his dream 
and that of the chief baker had been ex- 
plained by ‘ a young man, an Hebrew ser- 
vant to the captain of the guard.’ 

“Joseph was at once sent for, and he 
joyfully changed his prison clothes and 
went before Pharaoh. It was no slight 
matter to enter the presence of the mag- 
nificent Egyptian king, who was dressed 
in his splendid robes and surrounded by 


GOD'S WONDERFUL PROVIDENCE. 63 

his nobles and wise men — a despot whose 
frown could lift off the heads of those who 
.displeased him ; but the young Hebrew 
trusted in One greater than Pharaoh as 
he modestly stood before him. 

.‘“And Pharaoh said unto Joseph, I have 
dreamed a dream, and there is none that 
can interpret it, and I have heard say of 
thee that thou canst understand a dream 
to interpret it.’ 

“ To these gracious words came the hum- 
ble and reverent reply : ‘ It is not in me : 
God shall give Pharaoh an answer of 
peace.’ 

“The king then told his dream to the 
boyish interpreter, who said to him, ‘The 
dream of Pharaoh is one : God hath showed 
Pharaoh what he is about to do.’ He then 
explained that seven years of great plenty 
were coming on the land, and afterward 
seven years of grievous famine, and that 
the king had dreamed it twice ‘ because the 
thing is established by God, and God will 
shortly bring it to pass.’ 

“ Joseph then advised that a wise over- 
seer should be sought for and set over the 


64 SUNDAY EVENINGS AT ELM RIDGE. 

land of Egypt, with officers under him, and 
that these men should be appointed to lay 
up a store of food in the cities during the 
years of plenty, that when the years of fam- 
ine came the people need not perish of 
hunger. 

“ Pharaoh and his attendants were much 
pleased with the good sense of the young 
Hebrew, and after exclaiming, ‘ Can we find 
such a one as this is, a man in whom the 
Spirit of God is?’ the king said most unex- 
pectedly to Joseph, ‘ Forasmuch as God 
hath showed thee all this, there is none so 
discreet and wise as thou art: thou shalt 
be over my house, and according unto thy 
word shall all my people be ruled ; only in 
the throne will I be greater than thou.’ 
Then Pharaoh took off his ring from his 
hand, and put it upon Joseph’s hand, and 
arrayed him in vestures of fine linen, and 
put a gold chain about his neck ; and he 
made him to ride in the second chariot 
which he had : and they cried before him, 
Bow the knee : and he made him ruler 
over all the land of Egypt. And Pharaoh 
said unto Joseph, I am Pharaoh, and with- 


GOD^S WONDERFUL PROVIDENCE. 65 

out thee shall no man lift up his hand or 
foot in all the land of Egypt.’ The name 
of the new favorite was changed to ‘ Zaph- 
nath-paaneah,’ and the king married him 
to the daughter of the priest of On. 

“Joseph was, of course, no longer a child 
— he was thirty years old when he stood 
before Pharaoh — but in those old Bible 
days of long lives people were treated as 
children very much longer than they are 
now. 

“ The whole history of Joseph has a 
direct bearing upon that of Moses — the 
next child who appears in the Holy Script- 
ures — and in some things he is considered 
a type of our Lord and Saviour. 

“ Meanwhile, the old father lived on in 
the land of Canaan, never expecting to see 
his favorite son again, and giving the love 
that had been bestowed on Joseph to the 
youngest child of his old age, little Benja- 
min, who was Joseph’s own brother, both 
being the sons of Rachel. 

“After great plenty the seven dreadful 
years of famine came, just as Joseph had 
interpreted Pharaoh’s dream, and in all the 


66 SUNDAY EVENINGS AT ELMRIDGE. 

countries around Egypt, where this state 
of things had not been expected and people 
had made no provision for it during the 
years of plenty, there was great suffering 
for want of food. ‘ And in all the land of 
Egypt there was bread,’ because Joseph 
had set the officers under him at work to 
store up great quantities of corn while it 
was plentiful. 

“ When food became scarce in Egypt and 
the people cried to Pharaoh for bread, he 
answered them, ‘ Go unto Joseph : what he 
saith to you do.’ Then Joseph opened the 
well-filled storehouses and sold the people 
food. And the famine was great even in 
the land of Egypt, but this was the on y 
place where any food could be found ; 
‘and all countries came into Egypt to 
Joseph to buy corn, because that the fam- 
ine was so sore in all lands.’ Among the 
rest came Joseph’s wicked brethren, little 
dreaming that the mighty Egyptian ruler 
before whom every one bowed was the 
young brother whom they had hated and 
sold into slavery.” 

“Wouldn’t they have been frightened, 


GOD^S WONDEI^FUL PROVIDENCE. 6/ 

though,” exclaimed Malcolm, “if they’d 
known ?” 

“ They would not have dared to go if 
they had known, and therefore the knowl- 
edge was kept from them; ‘and Joseph’s 
brethren came and bowed down them- 
selves before him with their faces to the 
earth.’ 

“ Just like the dream !” said Clara. 

“Joseph knew them at once, for they 
had not changed so much as he had, and 
he ‘ remembered the dream which he had 
dreamed of them.’ How it must have 
flashed into his mind, ‘ Behold your sheaves 
stood round about and made obeisance to 
my sheaf,’ when they paid him the lowly 
reverence given to the Eastern ruler ! 
Did his heart beat with triumph while he 
received it quietly and as a matter of 
course? We shall see that the beautiful 
character of Joseph was quite free from 
any such feelings. But, wishing to see 
whether his brothers had changed for the 
better, he did not make himself known to 
them, but acted the part of Zaphnath- 
paaneah, the haughty governor of Egypt, 


68 SUNDAY EVENINGS AT ELMRIDGE. 

Speaking ‘ roughly/ or sternly, and de- 
manding to know where these ten for- 
eigners — for little Benjamin had been kept 
at home — had come from. But we will 
read the Bible narrative from the tenth 
to the thirtieth verse of the forty-second 
chapter of Genesis.” 

The verses were read in turn, and the 
children were astonished to find so much 
of a story in the beautiful narrative. But 
to see new beauties in the Bible was just 
what their governess was directing them 
to in these Sunday-evening talks. 

“We see,” continued Miss Harson, “that 
at length the poor old father, after reproach- 
ing his sons for ‘ telling the man that they 
had another brother,’ and moved, perhaps, 
by the pinched faces of the little children 
about him, consents that Benjamin shall go, 
adding the almost broken-hearted words, 

‘ And God almighty give you mercy before 
the man, that he may send away your other 
brother and Benjamin. If I be bereaved 
of my children, I am bereaved.’ 

“Joseph was so much overcome by the 
sight of his young brother — ‘his mother’s 


GOD’S WONDERFUL PROVIDENCE. 69 

son ’ — that he was obliged to leave the 
room to weep ; then, carefully washing off 
the traces of his tears, he returned and or- 
dered the servants to ‘ set on bread.’ But 
the governor was served at a separate 
table, ‘ because the Egyptians might not 
eat bread with the Hebrews ; for that is 
an abomination unto the Egyptians.’ 

“ It was a strange feast for the sons of 
Israel, and the youngest of them all was 
treated with honors that belonged proper- 
ly to the oldest, for on sending messes to 
them from the various dishes placed before 
him the governor took care that ‘ Benja- 
min’s mess was five times as much as any 
of theirs.’ Probably he meant this to see 
if now they would bear having a younger 
brother set above them any better. 

“ Then comes the account of the brothers’ 
journey home laden with food, and every 
man’s money, which he had brought to pay 
for it, in the mouth of his sack. .‘And put 
my cup,’ said Joseph, ‘the silver cup, in the 
sack’s mouth of the youngest, and his corn- 
money.’ They were pursued and over- 
taken by the steward, and charged with 


70 SUNDAY EVENINGS AT ELMRIDGE. 

Stealing his master’s drinking- and divin- 
ing-cup, and, worst of all, it was found in 
Benjamin’s sack.” 

“ Oh what a shame !” exclaimed Edith. 
“ Poor little boy !” 

“ The ‘ poor little boy,’ ” replied her gov- 
erness, smiling, “was probably a well-grown 
man ; but, all the same, it was a great sor- 
row to the brothers, who had promised 
their father to take such good care of him. 
For they had said, when requesting a search 
to be made, ‘ With whomsoever of thy ser- 
vants it be found, both let him die, and we 
also will be my lord’s bondmen.’ Well 
might they rend their clothes as they re- 
turned to the city, although the steward 
had replied that the guilty one should be 
his servant and the others might go free. 
But it meant death for their aged father to 
be deprived of Benjamin, and all went to 
petition the governor to release their young 
brother. 

“Judah told the whole story of their 
father’s unwillingness to send his dar- 
ling son and the reason why he loved him 
so much ; and when he pleaded that he 


GOD'S WONDERFUL EE OF/D FATE. 7 1 

might be taken as a bondman in place of 
the lad, Joseph could contain himself no 
longer. The affecting story of his aged 
father’s sorrow for his loss, and his cling- 
ing to Benjamin, ‘seeing that his life is 
bound up in the lad’s life,’ was too much 
for him, and, ordering every one from his 
presence except the eleven brothers, he 
wept aloud, ‘and the Egyptians and the 
house of Pharaoh heard.’ Great must have 
been their astonishment at the stranee con- 
duct of the mighty Zaphnath-paaneah. 

“Then said Joseph plainly to his broth- 
ers, ‘ I am Joseph ; doth my father yet live?’ 

“ But no answer came from the bewil- 
dered men before him ; they were not only 
amazed, but ‘ troubled,’ for what might not 
be in store for them in return for all their 
wickedness ? They knew that they had 
no right to expect anything but punish- 
ment from their injured brother, and they 
were dumb before him. 

“ The mighty governor’s heart, however, 
was yearning for his kindred in the midst 
of all his magnificence ; there were no feel- 
ings of resentment there, and he soothed 


72 SUNDAY EVENINGS AT ELMRIDGE. 

the conscience-stricken culprits with words 
of kindness, saying to them, ‘ Now there- 
fore be not grieved nor angry with your- 
selves that ye sold me hither ; for God did 
send me before you to preserve life.’ 

“After telling them of his power and glory, 
Joseph requested his brethren to bring his 
father to him, that he might nourish him 
and all the family during the years of fam- 
ine that yet remained. ‘And he fell upon 
his brother Benjamin’s neck and wept ; and 
Benjamin wept upon his neck. Moreover, 
he kissed all his brethren and wept upon 
them; and after that his brethren talked 
with him.’ They could no longer doubt 
his full forgiveness, incredible as it seemed; 
and in his kindness to those who had treat- 
ed him so cruelly Joseph has been com- 
pared to our Lord and Saviour. 

“ ‘ And the fame thereof was heard in 
Pharaoh’s house, saying, Joseph’s brethren 
are come : and it pleased Pharaoh well and 
his servants.’ The king even took it upon 
himself to send a kind message to the ven- 
erable father inviting him to leave his old 
home in Canaan, where people were dying 


GOD'S WONDERFUL PROVIDENCE. 73 

of famine, and come to his son in Egypt, 
saying, ‘I will give you the good of the 
land of Egypt ; and ye shall eat of the 
fat of the land.’ 

“ It was hard for Israel to believe that the 
son whom he had mourned as dead for so 
many years was not only alive, but actually 
governor over all the land of Egypt ; yet 
when he had heard the loving messages 
and had seen the presents which his son 
had sent him, as well as the wagons to 
carry into Egypt him and all that he had, 
he could no longer doubt the wondrous 
tale, and he said joyfully, ‘ It is enough ; 
Joseph my son is yet alive: I will go and 
see him before I die.’ 

“ In Egypt, Joseph too was looking for- 
ward impatiently to the meeting, and he 
‘ made ready his chariot, and went up to 
meet Israel his father to Goshen : and pre- 
sented himself unto him ; and he fell on his 
neck, and wept on his neck a good while. 
And Israel said unto Joseph, Now let me 
die, since I have seen thy face, because 
thou art yet alive.’ ” 

“ What did he want to die for. Miss Har- 


74 SUNDAY EVENINGS AT ELMRTDGE. 

son,” asked Malcolm, “ when he found that 
Joseph was alive ?” 

“It did not mean, as it would with us, 
that he really wished to die then,” replied 
his governess, “only that this great joy left 
him nothing more to ask. The old man 
lived seventeen years longer, in the house 
of his favorite son, surrounded by all the 
luxury of Egypt. He blessed Joseph’s 
sons, Ephraim and Manasseh, and died, 
at last, in the midst of his children. 

“Joseph mourned deeply for his father, 
and faithfully kept the promise he had 
made him that he should be buried in the 
land of Canaan. The Egyptians made 
him a magnificent funeral, and the great- 
est people of the land went to see his body 
laid in the cave of Machpelah. 

“The ten brothers became uneasy after 
the death of their father, and they said, 
‘Joseph will peradventure hate us, and will 
certainly requite us all the evil which we 
did unto him.’ They sent a messenger to 
him to beg his forgiveness again, saying 
that their father had commanded them to 
do this. Tears were Joseph’s only an- 


GOD'S WONDERFUL PROVIDENCE. 75 

swer, ‘and his brethren also went and fell 
down before his face : and they said, Be- 
hold, we be thy servants.’ 

“ Finally, Joseph speaks, telling them with 
fresh kindness that they have nothing to 
fear, and that, although they had thought 
evil against him, ‘ God meant it unto good 
to bring to pass as it is this day, to save 
much people alive. Now therefore fear 
ye not, I will nourish you and your little 
ones.’ Only kindness did they receive from 
this model brother as long as he lived, and 
some one has beautifully written : ‘ In Jo- 
seph we have a living example of the com- 
mand which St. Paul gives to Christians : 
“ Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves, 
but rather give place unto wrath ; for it is 
written. Vengeance is mine; I will repay, 
saith the Lord. Therefore if thine enemy 
hunger, feed him ; if he thirst, give him 
drink ; for in so doing thou shalt heap 
coals of fire on his head. Be not over- 
come of evil, but overcome evil, with 
good.’ ” * 

“And now, Clara,” said her governess, 

* Rom. xii. 19, 20, 21. 


76 SUNDA Y EVENINGS AT ELMRIDGE. 

“ I should like to have you turn to the fifth 
chapter of St. Matthew’s Gospel and read 
in the forty-fourth verse the words of our 
Saviour on the same subject.” 

Clara read in a distinct, reverent tone : 

“ ‘ But I say unto you, Love your enemies, 
bless them that curse you, do good to them 
that hate you, and pray for them which 
despitefully use you, and persecute you.’ ” 


CHAPTER VI. 


FROM A HUT TO A PALACE. 

“ T T was very interesting about Joseph/' 

1 said Clara, on the next Sunday even- 
ing, “ but he wasn’t much of a child, after 
all, and I’m so glad that weVe come to 
Moses.” 

Edith was gazing at a picture of the little 
chubby child lying in his basket among the 
tall reeds, while the king’s daughter and 
her maidens, who have just found him 
there, gaze at him wonderingly, and, half 
hidden by the river-plants, Miriam watches 
from a little distance to see what will be 
done with her baby-brother. 

“ Did he look just like that, Miss Har- 
son ?” asked the little girl. 

“ It is not an exact portrait of him, dear,” 
was the smiling reply, “but everything was 
very much as it is in the picture. To un- 
derstand it all, though, ^we must go back to 

77 


78 SUNDAY EVENINGS AT ELM RIDGE, 

the history of the Israelites after the death 
of Joseph. 



FINDING TIIK CHILD MOSES. 


“ The Hebrew governor had made him- 
self so much beloved and respected by 
his wisdom in preserving Egypt from the 


FROM A HUT TO A PALACE, 79 

dreadful famine that desolated other coun- 
tries, and by his just and kind rule, that his 
kinsmen were all made welcome in the 
land for his sake, and even long after his 
death his descendants and theirs were 
treated well. The country of Goshen was 
given to them for their own, and the Bible 
tells us that ‘ they had possessions therein, 
and grew and multiplied exceedingly.’ For 
a great many years the Israelites lived hap- 
pily in their adopted country, but they in- 
creased with wonderful rapidity, and the 
land — that is, the fruitful land of Goshen, 
where they lived — was filled with them. 
They seemed to be everywhere, and there 
were so many of them, and they were so 
thriving in all that they did, that the Egyp- 
tians became jealous of them. 

“At this time, as we read in the first 
chapter of Exodus, ‘ there arose up a new 
king over Egypt, which knew not Joseph’ 
— this means, perhaps, a new family of 
kings — and he resolved to make slaves of 
the Israelites, for fear that in case of a war 
with some other country they might side 
with the enemies of Egypt. They were 


8o SUNDAY EVENINGS AT ELMRIDGE. 

made to toil in the brick-kilns with hard 
taskmasters over them, ‘ and they built for 
Pharaoh treasure-cities,’ besides doing ‘all 
manner of service in the field,’ and the 
Egyptians ‘made their lives bitter with hard 
bondage.’ But all their hard work in the 
hot, burning sun did not seem to hurt 
them ; for ‘ the more they afflicted them, 
the more they multiplied and grew.’ When 
the cruel king found that he could not kill 
the Hebrews in this way, he ordered that 
every son born to them should be thrown 
into the river to be drowned or devoured 
by the hungry reptiles that swarmed along 
the banks of the Nile.” 

“ And this dear little baby might have 
been eaten up !” cried Edie, who was still 
holding the picture. 

“It was terrible indeed,” continued her 
governess, “ and among the first to suffer 
from this barbarous law were a family of 
the house of Levi. To this family a beau- 
tiful boy was born, but, instead of the usual 
joy on the birth of a son, all were sad and 
silent. Four years ago, when the oldest 
son — whom they had named Aaron — was 


FROM A HUT TO A PALACE. 


8l 


born, friends and neighbors came in to con- 
gratulate them and a great feasting was 
made, but now the poor mother could only 
weep as she gazed on her ‘ goodly child ’ 
and thought of the dreadful river and the 
savage crocodiles. Then the little one 
would smile in her face, and, clasping him 
closer in her arms, while the tears fell like 
rain, she felt that she could not give him 
up. He was so beautiful, this innocent 
Hebrew boy, for God had made him beau- 
tiful for a purpose, so large and noble- 
looking — for all this is meant by the words 
‘goodly child,’ in the second chapter of 
Exodus, ‘ exceeding fair,’ in the seventh 
chapter of the Acts of the Apostles, and 
‘ proper child,’ in the eleventh chapter of 
Hebrews — that all who came secretly to 
look at him declared that they had never 
seen so lovely a child and gladly helped to 
keep his birth a secret from those who 
would be likely to injure him. 

“ But what a dreadful time it must have 
been for the family — for the tender father 
and mother and the affectionate and ad- 
miring little brother and older sister, the 


8 2 SUNDA Y E VENINGS A T ELM RID GE. 

dark-eyed Miriam, who sang so sweetly 
and was the help and comfort of the house- 
hold! Every complaining cry, every sound 
of glee, had to be hushed for fear of bring- 
ing the murderers to the cradle. How 
they trembled when the little one would 
cry out in spite of them all ! and how every 
sudden footstep at the door made them feel 
that their hour had come !” 

“ And babies always cry, don't they, Miss 
Harson ?” asked Malcolm. “ Should think 
they would have heard him long ago." 

“ It seems to be a habit of all babies, in 
all countries,” was the reply; “but Moses 
was not heard by his enemies, because he 
was especially preserved by God. Every 
day the beautiful child grew more lovely, 
and it was harder to part with him, but it 
also became harder to hide him. The only 
wonder was that some spy had not found 
out their secret before this and told it to 
Pharaoh, and at the end of three months 
the Hebrew mother resolved to trust her 
child entirely to God rather than run the 
risk of keeping him any longer. It was 
very, very hard, but through faith in the 


FROM A HUT TO A PALACE. 83 

God of Israel she had ‘braved the kino’s 

o 

commandment and hid the babe for three 
months,’ and this same faith now strength- 
ened her to give him up. ‘ She took for 
him an ark of bulrushes’ — really, a small 
boat or basket of papyrus, a plant growing 
by the Nile and believed by the Egyptians 
to be a protection against crocodiles — ‘ and 
daubed it with slime and with pitch.’ This 
pitch, or bitumen, becomes hard and dry 
like mortar; it was used to stop up all the 
cracks in the papyrus basket and keep the 
baby from getting wet in his strange cradle 
on the water.” 

“ Poor little thing !” said Clara, sympa- 
thizingly. 

“ Because he was kept from getting 
wet?” asked Miss Harson, laughingly. 
“But I know that is not what you meant, 
and it is very sad to think of a dear lit- 
tle baby being left to float off by himself 
on a great river. But all had been made 
as safe and comfortable as possible, and 
the little one was, doubtless, placed in his 
new cradle with many tears and prayers. 

“ Early in the morning, when they were 


84 SUNDAY EVENINGS AT ELMRIDGE. 

not likely to be seen, mother and sister 
started for the riverside. It was a quiet, 
pretty spot bordered by flags and reeds, 
where many beautiful wild fowl made their 
nests in ‘ the paper-reeds by the brooks,’ 
the Bible says, for the Egyptian paper was 
made from papyrus. Beautiful flowers, 
too, grew in the river, with a sweet breath 
like our water-lily; these were the blue 
and white and pink blossoms of the lotus, 
or Eastern water-lily. 

“That wonderful river the Nile has seen 
so many strange things in sacred history, 
and some say that our Saviour was brought 
to this very part of it where Moses was left, 
near the city of Heliopolis, when his parents 
fled with him into Egypt for fear of Herod. 
But of this we cannot be at all sure. 

“The basket was tenderly laid in the 
flags by the river’s edge, and with a last 
kiss the weeping mother tore herself away. 
She might never see her beautiful boy again, 
but she would at least know what became 
of him ; so, charging Miriam to watch the 
little ‘ ark ’ faithfully, she sent her to stand 
some distance off, that she might see ‘ what 


FROM A HUT TO A PALACE. 85 

would be done to him.’ Perhaps during her 
watch the loving sister drove off some hungry 
vultures or screamed at the imaginary ap- 
proach of a savage-looking crocodile, won- 
dering how long the baby would sleep there 
quietly, and then, perhaps, grieved almost 
to death by his pitiful cry and trembling 
with fear lest Pharaoh’s servants should 
hear it and cast him at once into the water. 
Some one was certainly coming — a whole 
party, indeed ; and now — ” 

“ Oh dear !” exclaimed Edith, excitedly. 
“What did happen?” 

“ Nothing dreadful, pussie. A beautiful 
princess — the king’s own daughter — came 
with her attendant ladies to bathe in the 
river, and, seeing the queer little boat 
among the flags, she sent one of her maids 
to bring it to her. ‘And when she had 
opened it, she saw the child ; and behold 
the babe wept.’ He was probably fright- 
ened at the sight of so many strange people 
around him, and the kind-hearted princess 
had compassion on the beautiful boy, and 
said at once, ‘This is one of the Hebrews’ 
children.’ She saw the mother’s loving 


86 SUNDAY EVENINGS AT ELMRIDGE, 

hand in that carefully-made basket, and 
wondered, perhaps, how she would have 
felt to part with her child in this way. 

“The princess claimed the boy for her 
own at once, and perhaps tried in vain to 
soothe his cries by calling one of the Egyp- 
tian nurses to feed him ; for there is a story 
that the infant Moses refused to take Egyp- 
tian milk. It was then that his sister ap- 
peared and said to Pharaoh’s daughter, 
‘ Shall I go and call to thee a nurse of the 
Hebrew women, that she may nurse the 
child for thee ?’ And Pharaoh’s daughter 
said to her, ‘ Go.’ 

“ Where would Miriam go but straight to 
her own mother with the blessed news that 
the son whom she had lost was not only 
found again, but actually adopted by the 
king’s daughter, and that, moreover, the 
mother was to nurse him, and thus to have 
him at home again until he was several years 
old? The mother could scarcely believe 
the good news, and hastened, trembling, to 
the riverside, but not as she had trembled 
in the morning when she left her baby to 
an unknown fate. 


FROM A HUT TO A PALACE. 8 / 

“There were the gay group, as Miriam 
had described them, and the open basket 
and the crying child; but the Hebrew moth- 
er dared not claim her own, waiting until 
the princess said graciously, ‘ Take this 
child away and nurse it for me, and I will 
give thee thy wages.’ Her wages! The 
fond mother had thought herself abundant- 
ly repaid with smiles and kisses, but while 
in the sight of the Egyptian ladies she was 
only the Hebrew nurse, and she must 
thank the princess gratefully for being 
allowed to take care of her own child. 
How she rejoiced over the command, 
‘ Take this child away ’ ! and what an eager 
welcome the boy received when he was 
taken back again to his own home !” 

“Weren’t they glad!” exclaimed Clara, 
as though she knew all about it. 

“Yes, indeed; and some one who felt 
this has said, ‘ And oh how heartfelt would 
be the thanksgiving to the God of Abra- 
ham which arose that evening from be- 
neath the roof of that humble Hebrew 
dwelling I for the lost one had been found ; 
this their son who had been dead was alive 


88 SUNDAY EVENINGS AT ELMRIDGE. 

again ; the ark of bulrushes was trans- 
formed into a golden cradle, and, guided 
by a Hand divine, had landed its helpless 
freight in no monster’s jaws, but on the 
very steps of Pharaoh’s throne.’ ” 

“ I like that,” said Malcolm ; “ it sounds 
like poetry, only there isn’t any rhyme.” 

“ Wonderful indeed,” continued Miss 
Harson, “ is God’s care over his little ones, 
and children should especially feel that he 
is their heavenly Father, and that by his 
command angels bear them up in their 
hands lest at any time they should be 
destroyed. 

“ When the first delightful surprise of 
having their darling restored to them was 
past, a cloud must have come over the joy 
of the Hebrew family at the thought that 
he would be with them only for a few short 
years ; after that, when he could do without 
his mother, he was to live at the palace and 
be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter. 
Perhaps, however, before the time was up, 
Moses’ mother had come to believe that 
God had some great purpose in view in 
saving her child alive and in sending him 


FROM A HUT TO A PALACE. 


to be brought up at the Egyptian court. 
He may graciously have whispered some- 
thing of this to her — for the Lord is very 
pitiful and of tender mercy to them that 
fear him — as she wept silently over her 
beautiful, noble-looking boy ; for when the 
years were passed, he was quietly given 
up to be transformed from a Hebrew into 
an Egyptian child. The princess adopted 
him for her own son and gave him the 
name of Moses, ‘ because,’ she said, ‘ I drew 
him out of the water.’ It is not said what 
name his parents had given him ; he is 
known in the Bible only by his Egyptian 
name of ‘ Moses.’ 

“ It was a great change for the little He- 
brew boy to be taken from his humble 
home to the royal palace and taught to 
call the beautiful, grand-looking princess 
‘ mother.’ The poor child probably grieved 
at first for his own mother, whose familiar 
face and plain attire he liked far better, but 
there were endless toys and amusements 
provided for him, and people who had 
nothing to do but to wait on him and make 
him happy, with such beautiful music and 


90 SUNDAY EVENINGS AT ELMRIDGE. 

fragrant flowers and singing-birds and pets 
of all kinds that he scarcely knew what to 
make of it all. Soon he learned to love 
the beautiful lady who kissed him and 
called him ‘her own boy’ and praised his 
large, wondering eyes and rosy cheeks, and 
for a while, at least, the little Moses was as 
much an Egyptian child as if he had been 
born in the palace. Perhaps, too, he en- 
joyed ordering his attendants around just 
because they were so much larger and 
older than he was, and no one dared to 
disobey the slightest command of the little 
prince.” 

“ How funny that seems,” said Malcolm, 
“ when it was Moses all the time ! I never 
thought of him like that.” 

“Nor I, either,” said Clara; “I thought 
he was just a little Hebrew boy all the 
time.” , 

“Forgetting that he was the adopted 
son of the king’s daughter and would, of 
course, be treated like a prince,” replied 
their governess, “but I wish you partic- 
ularly to remember this, for it will make 
you understand better what he gave up 


FROM 4 HUT TO A PALACE, 9 1 

when the time came for him to make a 
choice. 

“ As Moses grew older his adopted 
mother had him carefully taught by learn- 
ed men ; and we are told that ‘ Moses was 
learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, 
and was mighty in words and in deeds.’ 
This was God’s purpose for him that he 
might be able to deliver his countrymen, 
the children of Israel, out of slavery and 
lead them to the promised land ; and if he 
had stayed in his humble home among the 
Hebrew brickmakers, he never could have 
learned what it was necessary for him to 
know.” 


CHAPTER VII. 


DESPISING THE RICHES OF EGYPT. 

“ T SHOULDN’T think Egypt would be 
X a nice place to live in,” said Clara as 
they were turning over some fine engrav- 
ings of Egyptian temples and places ; “ it 
looks so lonesome.” 

“ It was not lonesome then,” replied her 
governess, “ for there were too many peo- 
ple about, and it was a much grander and 
richer country than that from which the 
Israelites came. The air was clear and 
dry and the soil was very rich and fruit- 
ful ; the whole land looked like a great gar- 
den very carefully cultivated. There were 
handsome towns and temples on the river- 
banks, and this river was the ‘sacred Nile,’ 
which the idolatrous Egyptians worshiped 
as a god because it watered their country 
and made it fertile by overflowing its 
banks. For this reason Egypt 

92 


was an- 


DESPISING THE RICHES OF EGYPT 93 

ciently called ‘ the gift of the Nile.’ It is 
one of the oldest and most interesting 
countries in the world, and it has so large 
a place in Bible history that it is very de- 
sirable to know something about it. When 
Moses grew up there, Egypt was the land 
of plenty and of learning. The houses 
were plain, but the monuments and tem- 
ples were grand, because the ancient 
Egyptians did not think it right to spend 
much on the homes of the living, but they 
believed it to be their duty to honor those 
who were dead and to build magnificent 
temples for their gods. Some of these 
temples covered acres of ground and 
looked like great mountains of beautiful- 
ly wrought stone, while inside were figures, 
a hundred feet high, of kings. The won- 
derful pyramid of Cheops was nearly a 
thousand years old when Moses was a 
little boy.” 

“And we think that things in England 
are so very old, when they are younger 
than that !” said Malcolm, in surprise. 

“Yes,” was the reply, “that will do very 
well for a comparison, and it will help you 


94 SUNDAY EVENINGS AT ELMRIDGE. 

to understand that all those thousands of 
years ago the Israelites thought they were 
living in old Egypt. 

“The well-educated people, then, were 
very refined and intelligent, and Moses 
was brought up among the highest class 
of all. The Egyptian sages, as the learned 
men were called, were very much respected 
all over the world, but a great deal of fool- 
ishness and superstition was mixed up with 
their wisdom. They wrote on scrolls of 
papyrus made from the same kind of reeds 
that were used for Moses’ water-cradle, and 
the little Hebrew boy was taught to read 
these scrolls and to write the same curious 
letters which the sages used. They also 
understood astronomy and other useful 
arts, and through their knowledge of 
chemistry they were already using glass 
and bronze and many beautiful colors. 

“Among the stories of Moses not found 
in the Bible there are some which some 
people believe to be true because they are 
perfectly reasonable. It is said that one 
day when Moses was only three years old 
King Pharaoh playfully put the crown of 


DESPISING THE RICHES OF EGYPT. 95 

on his head, but the boy tore it off 
and with hashing eyes trampled it under 
foot. So would he trample the idols of 

when he became a man. This was 
the same Moses who, ‘ when he was come 
to years, refused to be called the son of 
Pharaoh’s daughter ; choosing rather to 
suffer affliction with the people of God, 
than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a 
season ; esteeming the reproach of Christ 
greater riches than the treasures in Egypt.’ 

“The little foundling had become a well- 
grown lad when clouds of trouble began to 
darken his hitherto clear sky. The stories 
of him say that he had already distinguished 
himself in battle and driven off an army of 
invaders, which caused him to be treated 
with still greater honor on his return. But 
the courtiers were jealous, and Pharaoh’s 
counselors whispered to him that this Egyp- 
tianized Hebrew would side with his own 
people now that he was getting to be pow- 
erful, and perhaps stir up a rebellion in the 
land. Or he might even try to be king in 
Pharaoh’s stead, and were there not scat- 
tered through the country half a million of 


96 SUNDAY EVENINGS AT ELM RIDGE. 

his people who would rise at once to help 
him ? There was no confidence, they said, 
to be placed in him as he was ; for he wor- 
shiped the one God of the Hebrews, and 
that made him more a Hebrew than anything 
else. If he kept his place in the palace, he 
must become an Egyptian in everything — 
must bow to the idols and worship in the 
temples. Pharaoh listened well pleased to 
these words, for he also had become jeal- 
ous of his adopted grandson, and the test 
was immediately put to the young Hebrew 
of leaving the royal palace and going to 
live among his degraded countrymen, or 
bowing to the idols of Egypt and confess- 
ing that Osiris instead of Jehovah was God. 

“ The choice that Moses had to make 
was one of great importance. On the side 
of Egypt were vast treasures of wealth 
with comfort and honor ; and if he stayed 
at the court of Pharaoh, he would probably 
rise, as Joseph had risen, to be the second in 
the land, with only the king on his throne 
greater than he ; he would have the splen- 
dors of a palace with the society of sages 
and the greatest and proudest of earth ; his 


£>£SP/S/iVG THE RICHES OF EGYPT. 97 

great beauty would be set off by costly 
robes and all his gifts of mind admired and 
strengthened. Should he leave all this for 
the despised Goshen, where the people 
were slaves with scarcely a thought beyond 
their daily toil, their hard taskmasters hav- 
ing crushed all the spirit out of them, where 
they mingled their coarse bread with tears 
and scarcely dreamed of the palace dainties, 
and where, instead of royal leisure, he would 
have to scorch in the brick-field with his 
overburdened companions groaning around 
him ? ‘ But these bondmen were his breth- 
ren ; their God, and not Osiris, was the true 
God ; and, afflicted and depressed as they 
presently were, their God had promised to 
deliver them. And who could tell but he 
might honor Moses himself to be their de- 
liverer ? So farewell, Memphis ; farewell, 
kind foster-mother ; farewell, gloomy and 
fitful Pharaoh ; farewell, ye dreams of am- 
bition; ye prospects of greatness and pleas- 
ures of sin, farewell !’ ” 

'‘Pm so glad!” exclaimed Clara, joyfully. 
“ I was afraid he’d make up his mind to stay 
in the palace.” 

7 


98 SUNDAY EVENINGS AT ELMRIDGE. 

Miss Harson smiled at her pupil’s earn- 
estness as she said, 

“ Do not forget, dear, the real Bible his- 
tory in listening to my account of it and to 
the thoughts of others ; but I am glad that 
you find it so interesting. 

“Yes, Moses bravely turned his back on 
the treasures of Egypt and cast in his lot 
with the despised Hebrews, ‘ not fearing 
the wrath of the king; for he endured, as 
seeing Him who is invisible.’ He refused 
to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter 
that he might take a higher rank as the 
child of God. He is said to have been 
only twelve years old when he made this 
refusal, but for a Jewish boy this age was 
the beginning of manhood. It is not known 
how or when Moses found out that he was 
not really an Egyptian, for the princess 
wished him to think himself really her son, 
and was probably pained by what she con- 
sidered his obstinacy in this matter, but it 
is thought that his mother may sometimes 
have met him by stealth and taught him the 
Hebrew faith and told him of God’s wonder- 
ful promises to their nation. The promise 


DESPISING THE RICHES OF EG YPT. 99 

was first made to Abraham : ‘ In thee and 
in thy seed shall all families of the earth be 



BRICK-MAKING. 


blessed and his seed were the poor de- 
spised people who were now toiling in 


lOO SUNDAY EVENINGS AT ELMRIDGE. 

Pharaoh’s brick-kilns. For God had also 
said, in substance, ‘ Thy seed shall be four 
hundred years a stranger and a servant in 
a foreign land ; and afterward I will punish 
their oppressors, and bring out themselves 
with great substance.’ 

“ Here,” continued Miss Harson, “ in 
this book on Egypt, are pictures of the 
Hebrew slaves at work. Some of them, 
you see, are measuring out the clay for 
bricks ; others, moulding it into blocks ; 
others, again, carrying away the finished 
bricks on yokes and piling them up under 
the eye of an Egyptian taskmaster, or over- 
seer, who, with his rod in his hand, sits at 
ease and does nothing. Other pictures 
show the Egyptians trampling on the necks 
of their enemies, and in some others there 
are on their grand temples and palaces in- 
scriptions which boast that no Egyptian had 
worked on these vast buildings, but that for- 
eigners had been made to do all the labor.” 

“ One thing, I know,” exclaimed Mal- 
colm, excitedly : “ they didn’t get any 
Americans to work on their old temples 
and things !” 


DESPISING THE RICHES OF EGYPT. lOI 

“ No,” laughed his governess ; “ they cer- 
tainly did not. There were no Americans 
in those days ; and if there had been, they 
were too far off. The ‘ foreigners’ whom the 
Egyptians despised were poor oppressed 
Israelites — the seed of Abraham. The pa- 
gans who made these pictures bear witness 
in them to the truth of God’s holy word 
and tell us about the life of the Hebrews in 
Egypt many things which we could know 
in no other way. It was a dreadful life ; 
and the more we learn of it, the more we 
feel that it could have been only by faith ’ 
that Moses forsQok the royal palace to share 
the hard lot of his countrymen. 

“After this the history of Moses is that of 
a man and a leader, and we know from the 
Bible how he killed the Egyptian whom he 
found ill-treating a Hebrew, and was then 
obliged to flee from Egypt. His country- 
men seemed as suspicious of the half-Egyp- 
tian ‘ prince ’ as the Egyptians had been of 
the half-Hebrew slave. Born of the He- 
brews and brought up among the Egyp- 
tians, neither nation would acknowledge 
him as a countryman, and, so far, Moses’ 


102 SUNDAY EVENINGS AT ELMRIDGE. 

courageous choice had brought him nothing 
but trouble. Pharaoh had heard of Moses 
killing the Egyptian, and sought to slay 
him, and there was no safety for him but 
in leaving the country where he had spent 
so many happy years.” 

“ What a shame !” said Clara. “ I should 
not think he’d have cared anything about 
the Hebrews, when they treated him so.” 

“ Moses was not thinking only of him- 
self, dear, but of what God might want 
him to do. ‘ The land of Midian,’ to which 
he fled, was a desolate and rocky country 
in Arabia, and it must hav^ looked gloomy 
enough after such a beautiful and fertile 
land as Egypt. Yet the absence of idols — 
at least, in that lonely part of it — made it a 
pleasant contrast; and here ‘for the next 
forty years Moses was destined to spend 
many a day of exalted communion with 
Abraham’s God and his own, and here, 
before the history ended, he should see 
the mountains shake and hear those hushed 
valleys re-echo to the trumpet of angels 
and the voice of Jehovah.’ But he was 
wandering now without a home that he 


DESPISING THE RICHES OF EGYPT. IO3 

could call his own or any nation that would 
claim him, and perhaps, when he first came 
into that dreary region, he thought that he 
would soon die there. One day he found 
in the desert a little oasis, or green spot, 
where there was a well of water, and by 
this well he sat down to wait for the people 
who would be sure to come there to water 
their flocks. Midian was celebrated for its 
camels ; in the seventh chapter of Judges 
it is said that ‘ their camels were without 
number, as the sand by the seaside for 
multitude.’ 

“ An act of kindness to the daughters of 
the priest of Midian provided Moses with 
friends and a home. The Arabs have al- 
ways been a very hospitable people, taking 
strangers at once to their tents and their 
hearts ; and when the visitor had eaten 
bread with them, he was doubtless urged 
by the father of the maidens to stay with 
them a while until he had decided what to 
do. Finally, it was proposed that he should 
live with them altogether and attend to the 
flocks, and Zipporah, one of the daughters, 
became his wife. 


104 SUNDAY EVENINGS AT ELMRIDGE. 

“ So the Egyptian prince and warrior, 
after casting away all earthly prospects of 
greatness, and even risking his life for the 
sake of his ungrateful brethren, had settled 
down into a humble shepherd in the wilds 
of Arabia. He who had commanded an 
army was now leading sheep and camels, 
and the favorite of a palace was living in 
a rude tent.” 

“ But he’d rather live there, wouldn’t he. 
Miss Harson ?” asked little Edith, who was 
not quite sure about it. 

“ Yes, dear,” was the reply ; “ for if these 
ways were not ways of pleasantness, they 
were certainly paths of peace. This had 
not been the case with the pleasures of 
Egypt, which were poisoned with idolatry 
and wickedness ; but now Moses could say, 
as did David, afterward, ‘The Lord is my 
shepherd ; he maketh me to lie down in 
green pastures ; he leadeth me in the paths 
of righteousness.’ 

“ It was here, in the wilderness of Horeb, 
that Moses first saw God. He had known 
him and served him from his earliest child- 
hood, but had never yet been brought so 


DESPISING THE RICHES OF EGYPT. I05 

near as actually ‘ to see Him who is invis- 
ible/ There was a great work for him to 
do — a work to which he hoped he had been 
called when he went out to his brethren at 
their tasks ; but when he found that they 
would not have him for their leader, he was 
afraid he had been mistaken. 

“ Forty years spent in that ‘ great and 
terrible wilderness,' the desert of Horeb, 
taught Moses more of God than he had 
ever known before ; and while looking up 
to those lonely mountains he probably 
wrote the ninetieth psalm, which is called, 
‘ A prayer of Moses the man of God,' and 
in which he says: ‘Before the mountains 
were brought forth, or ever thou hadst 
formed the earth and the world, even from 
everlasting to everlasting, thou art God.’ ” 

“ Did Moses really see God, Miss Har- 
son ?” asked Clara, in a tone of awe. 

“ I will tell you the story, dear,” replied 
her governess, “as we find it in the Bible; 
and this is the way it reads : There came a 
day, at length, when Moses led his flock, 
as usual, to the back part of the desert, 
‘and came to the mountain of God, even 


I06 SUNDA Y E VENINGS A T ELMRIDGE. 

to Horeb.’ This was the highest of all the 
mountains around, and in some of the hol- 
lows pasture was found for the sheep, be- 
sides a good store of water. But the Ara- 
bian shepherds were afraid to go near it, 
for they had a belief that God dwelt there ; 
and it was in this very place that he ap- 
peared to Moses. Upon the top of the 
mountain there was an acacia, or shittim, 
tree, also called the ‘ thorn tree of the des- 
ert,’ which spreads out its tangled branches 
full of white thorns over the rocky ground. 
It is mentioned in the Bible as ‘a bush;’ 
for we are told in the third chapter and 
second verse of Exodus, ‘And the Angel 
of the Lord appeared unto him in a flame 
of fire out of the midst of a bush : and he 
looked, and, behold, the bush burned with 
fire, and the bush was not consumed.’ 

“ Moses was astonished to see the thorn 
tree, which had not changed for so many 
years, suddenly burst into a bright flame, 
and he was still more amazed to find that 
the tree itself did not burn. Not a single 
branch of it fell ; the flame only seemed to 
play around it without doing any harm. 


DESPISING THE RICHES OF EGYPT lO/. 

Then he said, T will now turn aside and 
see this great sight, why the bush is not 
burnt.’ But God called to him from the 
bush and said, ‘ Draw not nigh hither: put 
off thy shoes from off thy feet ; for the place 
whereon thou standest is holy ground.’ His 
shepherd’s sandals were not to touch the 
rocky soil which had now become holy with 
the presence of God, but were to be taken 
off, after the Eastern custom on entering 
a temple or a palace.” 

“ Isn’t that like men in this country tak- 
ing off their hats ?” said Malcolm. 

“Just the same, as it is intended fora 
mark of respect. — Moses fell on his face 
with fear when he heard the voice saying, 

‘ I am the God of thy father, the God of 
Abraham, the God' of Isaac, and the God 
of Jacob,’ for he was afraid to look upon 
God. Wonderful words followed, for God 
had come down to deliver his people out 
of the hand of the Egyptians, and to lead 
them out of the land of Egypt he would 
send ‘ this Moses whom they refused.’ Moses 
could not at first believe that he would be 
able to do this, but God promised to be 


108 SUNDAY EVENINGS AT ELMRIDGE. 

with him, and said that upon that very 
mountain the people brought out of Egypt 
should serve him. God then told Moses 
the name by which he was to be called by 
the children of Israel, ‘I Am/ or ‘Jeho- 
vah,’ which means ‘self-existent, ever- 
living One,’ ‘all powerful’ or ‘mighty.’ 

‘ Go,’ said he, ‘ and gather the elders of 
Israel together, and say unto them. The 
Lord God of your fathers, the God of 
Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob, appeared 
unto me, saying, I have surely visited you, 
and seen that which is done to you in 
Egypt ; and I have said, I will bring you 
up out of the affliction of Egypt, into the 
land of the Canaanites, and the Hittites, 
and the Amorites, and the Perizzites, and 
the Hivites, and the Jebusites, into a land 
flowing with milk and honey.’ 

“ As Moses listened to these words, and 
to the still greater things which God told 
him were in store for the Israelites, he 
feared that they would not believe him, or 
even listen to him. ‘ They will say,’ he 
said, ‘ The Lord hath not appeared unto 
thee.’ Then, to convince him, there was 


DESPISING THE RICHES OF EGYPT. IO9 

wrought with his shepherd’s rod a miracle 
which frightened him exceedingly : the rod 
was changed into a serpent, ‘and Moses fled 
from before it.’ But when, at God’s com- 
mand, he took it up, it became a rod again 
in his hand; and this power was given to 
Moses that his brethren might know that 
‘the Lord God of their fathers, the God of 
Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God 
of Jacob,’ had appeared unto him. Two 
other signs were given to Moses — the pow- 
er of making his hand white as with the 
disease of leprosy and then instantly re- 
storing it to its natural state, and the power 
of changing the water of the river into 
blood when poured on the dry land. Such 
signs as these the Israelites would not dare 
to doubt, but, although Moses fully believed 
in God, he could not be made to believe in 
himself. He still shrank from the task be- 
fore him, and said, ‘ O my Lord, I am not 
eloquent, neither heretofore, nor since thou 
hast spoken unto thy servant, but I am 
slow of speech, and of a slow tongue.’ 
‘And the Lord said unto him. Who hath 
made man’s mouth ? or who maketh the 


1 10 SUNDA V E VENINGS A T ELM RIDGE. 

dumb or deaf, or the seeing, or the blind ? 
have not I, the Lord ? Now therefore go, 
and I will be with thy mouth, and teach thee 
what thou shalt say.’ 

“ But Moses could not help remembering 
how his Hebrew brethren had scorned his 
interference and made it necessary for him 
to flee from Egypt, and he begged that God 
would send some one else to deliver them. 
His obstinacy displeased the Lord, but he 
graciously promised to send Aaron, his 
brother, with him, to speak as he should 
direct him, while Moses was to do the mir- 
acles. ‘ And Moses took his wife and his 
sons, and set them upon an ass, and he 
returned to the land of Egypt,’ for God 
had told him that the men were all dead 
who had sought his life, and Aaron had 
been sent to meet him. ‘And he went 
and met him in the mount of God, and 
kissed him. And Moses told Aaron all 
the words of the Lord who had sent him, 
and all the signs which he had commanded 
him.’ 

“ Shall we leave Moses, now that he is no 
longer a child,” asked Miss Harson, “ and 


DESPISING THE RICHES OF EGYPT. Ill 


in the Bible read the rest of his history and 
that of the Israelites ?” 

“ Please do not,” the children entreated ; 
“ there is so much more of it when you 
tell it.” 


CHAPTER VIII. 

THE DELIVERER. 

“ IV /T OSES had been well received as 
1.VX the Heaven-sent leader of the chil- 
dren of Israel, who fully believed in his 
power, but it was a much harder thing to 
make Pharaoh believe, for he neither knew 
nor cared for the God of the Hebrews. 
‘ Who is the Lord,’ said he, ‘ that I should 
obey his voice to let Israel go? I know 
not the Lord, neither will I let Israel go.’ 
The proud and obstinate tyrant had no 
idea of parting with two millions of useful 
slaves through whose labor he hoped to 
make his name last for ages, and he or- 
dered them sternly to their work again. 
Their burdens were made harder than 
ever, and they were beaten for being idle 
when no straw was given them to mix with 
the clay for their bricks ; so that they had 
112 


THE DELIVERER. 


II3 

to spend part of the time in searching the 
fields for stubble to use instead of straw. 

“A Jewish proverb says, ‘ When the tale 
of bricks is doubled, then comes Moses,’ 
meaning that when all human help seems 
to have failed God rescues his people ; and 
the oppressed Hebrews, who were, as their 
officers said, ‘ in evil case ’ — worse off now 
than they had ever been before — were soon 
to be slaves no longer. But even Moses’ 
faith failed him in this evil time, and he 
said in his distress, ‘ Lord, wherefore hast 
thou so evil-entreated this people ? Why 
is it that thou hast sent me ? For since I 
came to Pharaoh to speak in thy name, he 
hath done evil to this people : neither hast 
thou delivered thy people at all.’ ” 

“ Oh,” murmured Clara, in a shocked 
tone, “ how dared he ? And after God had 
appeared to him, too !” 

“ My dear child,” replied her governess, 
“ we can be surprised at Moses in the midst 
of all his trials, and yet we constantly do 
just as bad and unbelieving things. Do 
not let us forget that ‘in these last days 
God has revealed himself unto us through 


1 14 SUNDA Y EVENINGS AT ELMRIDGE. 

his Son ’ as well as through his holy word, 
neither of which lights had those early 
Israelites. 

“ God knew all his servant’s troubles 
and could see in his heart that Moses really 
loved him ; instead, therefore, of punishing 
this momentary unbelief, he renewed his 
wonderful promises to the children of Israel 
and sent Moses back to them with comfort- 
ing words. But the poor overworked crea- 
tures were so wretched that they would not 
listen to him. Again did Moses in his dis- 
tress call unto the Lord, and again was he 
sent to Pharaoh. 

“But the king did not care either for 
the words of Moses and Aaron or for the 
signs which they did, for his heart had been 
hardened ; and he called together the ma- 
gicians and sorcerers of Egypt, and they 
seemed to do with their enchantments the 
same things that were done by Moses and 
Aaron, yet Aaron’s rod, when it had be- 
come a serpent, ‘ swallowed up their rods.’ 

“ Not yet would Pharaoh let the people 
go, and the great idol of Egypt, the river 
Nile, on which the Egyptians depended 


THE DELIVERER, 


II5 

both for water and for food, was turned 
into blood ; so that all the fish in it died, 
‘ and the Egyptians could not drink of the 
water of the river.’ But the magicians 
pretended that they could do the same, 
‘ and Pharaoh’s heart was hardened,’ and 
he ‘turned and went into his house.’ 

“Then God poured out his anger on the 
land by sending swarms of frogs and lice 
and flies, then a dreadful plague, or ‘mur- 
rain,’ upon the cattle and the people, then 
the hail and the locusts, and at last the 
death of all the first-born of the Egyptians. 
For Pharaoh had defied the God of Israel, 
and now his heart was so hardened that 
nothing seemed to move him. 

“ Egypt was a dreadful place to live in 
then ; day after day some fresh plague 
came, and the people were in despair. 
But the haughty tyrant would not bow 
before the Hebrew slave who had been 
brought up in his own palace; he would 
not own the God of these bondmen to be 
greater than Osiris ; he did not choose to 
be laughed at and scorned by the heathen 
nations around him. The plagues always 


1 1 6 SUNDAY EVENINGS AT EIMR/DGE. 

Stopped after a while, and by and by, he 
thought, they would stop altogether. His 
own magicians could do almost as much 
as the Hebrew leaders, and therefore ‘Pha- 
raoh hardened his heart.’ ” 

“ I should think he might have had 
enough of it by that time,” said Malcolm. 

“ The king was troubled by the terrible 
darkness that blotted out the clear, sunny 
sky of Egypt for three days — a darkness 
so thick that it could be felt. Osiris was 
the sun-god and he was frowning on them, 
or some mightier god, perhaps, had over- 
come him ; the end of the world might be 
at hand. This was more dreaded than 
anything which had happened yet, and at 
last Pharaoh showed that he was fright- 
ened. He was willing now to let the 
Israelites go to hold unto their God a feast 
in the wilderness, which Moses and Aaron 
had asked at first, and they might take their 
little ones, he said, with them, but they must 
leave their cattle and all their possessions 
behind, to show that they were coming 
back again to slavery as soon as their feast 
was over. 


THE DELIVERER. 


11 / 


“ Moses, however, would not consent to 
this, for had not God promised that when 
they went they should not go empty ? 
Not only were they to take with them all 
that they were allowed to call their own, 
but for all those unpaid years of cruel 
labor, the Lord had said, ‘ every woman 
shall borrow* of her neighbor, and of her 
that sojourneth in her house, jewels of 
silver, and jewels of gold, and raiment; 
and ye shall put them upon your sons, 
and your daughters ; and ye shall spoil 
the Egyptians.’ 

“ Pharaoh flew into a rage with Moses 
when he insisted that his people should 
take with them all that belonged to them, 
and he fiercely ordered him out of his 
sight, threatening to kill him if he ever 
saw his face again. 

“ One plague more, the Lord told Moses, 
should be sent upon Pharaoh and upon 
Egypt, and then not only would he let the 
people go, but would thrust them out alto- 
gether. But first the Hebrews were di- 

* “ Ask ” is the rendering of the Revised Version, and the true 
rendering. 


1 1 8 SUNDA V E VENINGS A T ELM RIDGE. 

rected to borrow (or “ask”) their neighbors’ 
jewelry, of which they had a great store, 
‘and the Lord gave the people favor in the 
sight of the Egyptians,’ so that the jewels 
were given readily ; besides, ‘ the man Moses 
was very great in the land of Egypt, in the 
sight of Pharaoh’s servants, and in the sight 
of the people.’ 

“What was the last plague,” asked Miss 
Harson, “which God brought upon the 
wicked king and his land ?” 

“Wasn’t it the death of the first-born?” 
said Clara, rather hesitatingly. 

“Yes, dear; I am glad that you remem- 
ber it so well. Of that terrible night I will 
read you a description which seemed to me 
to make it very real : 

“ ‘ It was April, and it was the night of 
the full moon. The soft and silvery light 
fell on the white backs of the African moun- 
tains far away, and it streamed almost per- 
pendicularly on the mighty pyramids, which 
rose like silent symbols of eternity straight 
above his — Moses’— head. In the royal 
streets of Memphis all was silent, and all 
was silent in the wide green plain around 


THE DELIVERER. 


19 


it — so silent that if you had taken a quiet 
stroll by the river-brink you might have 
heard the plunge of the night-feeding fishes 
and the pants of behemoth as he slept 
among the bulrushes. 

“ ‘ But, although all was so silent, all was 
not locked in slumber. These lowly cot- 
tages — they are Hebrew huts, the hovels 
of slaves — have lights still burning. Peep 
through the chink and see what the in- 
mates are doing. They are all of them 
astir; not one of them has lain down ; and 
they look like people preparing for a jour- 
ney. On the table are traces of a finished 
repast ; the house-mother is packing up 
her kneading-trough ; with his staff in his 
hand, the goodman is ready for the road, 
and the very children are excited and 
watching. 

“ ‘But what is this red mark on the door? 
What means this blood on the lintel ? Did 
you hear that cry? ’Tis the moment of 
midnight, and some tragedy is enacted in 
that Egyptian dwelling, for such an un- 
earthly shriek ! And it is repeated and 
re-echoed as doors burst open and frantic 


1 20 SUNDA Y E VEN/NGS AT EL MEIDGE, 

women rush into the street, and, as the 
houses of priests and physicians are beset, 
they only shake their heads in speechless 
agony and point to the death-sealed feat- 
ures of their own first-born.’ ” 

“ Oh,” sighed little Edith, “ I’m so glad I 
wasn’t there !” 

“ Terrible indeed, dear, was the ven- 
geance which these people had brought 
upon themselves. 

“ ‘ Lights are flashing at the palace gates 
and flitting through the royal chambers, and 
as the king’s messengers hasten through 
the town inquiring where the two venerable 
Hebrew brothers dwell the whisper flies, 
“ The prince-royal is dead !” — “ Be off, ye 
sons of Jacob! Speed from our house of 
bondage, ye oppressed and injured Israel- 
ites !”• and in their eagerness to “thrust 
forth ” the terrible, because Heaven-pro- 
tected, race they press upon them gold 
and jewels, and bribe them to be gone.’ 

“ Not one had been spared among the 
Egyptians, ‘ from the first-born of Pharaoh 
that sat on his throne unto the first-born 
of the captive that was in the dungeon, and 


THE DELIVERER. 


I2I 


all the first-born of cattle. And Pharaoh 
rose up in the night, he and all his servants, 
and all the Egyptians, and there was a 
great cry in Egypt: for there was not a 
house where there was not one dead.’ 

“ The king called for Moses and Aaron 
that same night and begged them to take 
all that they had and go, even asking them 
to bless him, while all the Egyptians hur- 
ried the Hebrews off as fast as possible, for 
they said, ‘ We be all dead men,’ and were 
willing to lend or give anything that was 
required. ‘And they spoiled the Egyp- 
tians,’ as the Lord had said. 

“ It was a night to be remembered by 
both Egyptians and Hebrews — ‘a night to 
be much observed unto the Lord for bring- 
ing them out of the land of Egypt ;’ and it 
has never been forgotten by the Jews. 
Very solemn has always been their cele- 
bration of the passover, for ‘ that night,’ 
they say, ‘unto all except the blood-sprink- 
led houses went the Angel of Death and 
smote the first-born, while he passed over 
our fathers, whom, from that house of bond- 
age and that night much to be observed, 


1 22 SUNDA Y E VENINGS A T ELM RIDGE. 

with a hieh hand and an outstretched arm 
God carried to this goodly land. So we, 
the sons of Israel, come together to keep 
the great feast of the Hebrew family, and 
we eat the unleavened bread and the lamb 
with bitter herbs, as our fathers ate that 
night.’ The Lord Jesus Christ was always 
careful to keep this feast at Jerusalem, and 
it was at the time of its celebration that 
‘ Christ our Passover was slain for us.’ 
While the Jews still eat their paschal lamb 
in memory of that night, the Christian feast 
is the Lord’s Supper, which the Saviour 
commanded in its stead.” 

“ I should think,” said Clara, “ that the 
Israelites would have been so glad to get 
out of Egypt that they would choose always 
to be good.” 

“We shall see, Clara. — The Hebrews 
were now safely oiit of the land of bondage 
and in the wilderness of the Red Sea, where 
God intended to keep them for forty years, 
and, that they might know the way he 
meant them to go, ‘ the Lord went before 
them by day in a pillar of a cloud to lead 
them the way ; and by night in a pillar of 


THE DELIVERER. 


123 


fire to give them light ; to go by day and 
night.’ 

“ ‘ When Israel, of the Lord beloved, 

Out from the land of bondage came, 

Their fathers’ God before them moved, 

An awful Guide, in cloud and flame. 

“ ‘ By day, along the astonished lands. 

The cloudy pillar guided slow; 

By night Arabia’s crimsoned sands 
Returned the fiery column’s glow.’ 

“The Israelites expected to get to the 
land of Canaan — which they had been 
promised for their home — very soon after 
leaving Egypt ; a week’s steady march 
would have taken them there, but this 
was not God’s way for them. They were 
to have many disappointments and frights 
and to commit many sins before they reach- 
ed the promised land, and not long after 
they had started on their journey they 
found that the Egyptians were pursuing 
them.” 

“ O — h !” exclaimed the children, involun- 
tarily. 

“ For they said, ‘ Why have we done this, 
that we have let Israel go from serving us ?’ 
So Pharaoh gathered his army and all the 


1 24 SUNDA Y E VENINGS A T ELM RIDGE. 

chariots of Egypt, and came upon the 
Israelites as they were encamping by the 
sea. They were greatly frightened at the 
sudden appearance of their enemies, for 
they could see nothing before them but 
death, and, forgetting all that God had 
already done for them and how he had 
thrown a constant, loving care over them, 
they wildly reproached Moses for bringing 
them out into the wilderness to die. But, 
instead of this, God had brought the Egyp- 
tians out to die, for it happened just as 
Moses said to them : ‘ The Egyptians 
whom ye have seen to-day, ye shall see 
them again no more for ever.’ By God’s 
command Moses stretched out his hand 
over the sea, and the waters were divided 
for the children of Israel to walk through 
the midst of them on dry ground. The 
Egyptians went after them with all their 
chariots, but slowly, for the Lord ‘ troubled 
the host of the Egyptians’ by taking off 
their chariot-wheels that they drave them 
heavily ; and they turned to go back, be- 
cause they saw that the Lord fought for 
Israel against them. Again Moses stretch- 


THE DELIVERER. 


125 


ed forth his hand, and the rushing waters 
came together, ‘and the Lord overthrew 
the Egyptians m the midst of the sea.’ 
‘ Thus the Lord saved Israel that day out 
of the hand of the Egyptians ; and Israel 
saw the Egyptians dead upon the sea- 
shore.’ No more danger from their ene- 
mies now, and Moses and the children of 
Israel sang a song of triumph ; while ‘ Mir- 
iam the prophetess, the sister of Aaron, 
took a timbrel in her hand, and all the 
women went out after her, with timbrels 
and with dances. And Miriam answered 
them. Sing ye to the Lord, for he hath 
triumphed gloriously ; the horse and his 
rider hath he thrown into the sea.’ ” 

“That was splendid!” said Malcolm. 
“And I suppose the Israelites were all 
right now ?” 

“That is what they thought,” was the 
reply, “but hardly a week had passed after 
this great deliverance before they were 
again murmuring against Moses for want 
of drink. God sent them water, and then 
they murmured for food, always declaring 
how much better off they would have been 


126 SUNDAY EVENINGS AT ELMRIDGE. 

if they had only stayed in Egypt. God 
‘ rained bread from heaven ’ for them in 
the shape of manna, and quails for flesh ; 
but the people seemed to forget these 
miracles as soon as they were ended, and 
continually reproached Moses with bring- 
ing them out of Egypt to let them die 
in the wilderness.” 

“ I wonder,” said Clara, “ that they weren’t 
sent back into Egypt, when they were so 
wicked and ungrateful. I don’t think the 
Israelites were good people at all.” 

“Are we never ‘wicked and ungrateful,’ 
dear child, for God’s mercies ? And what 
would become of us should he punish us 
as we deserve? Let us be patient, then, 
with the Israelites, as God was, and as he 
is with us every day of our lives. 

“ In the third month after they had left 
Egypt the children of Israel came into the 
wilderness of Sinai. This was the same 
wilderness of Horeb in which Moses had 
lived for so many years, and which, as you 
remember, was a wild and desolate region. 
In the centre were the Sinai mountains — 
one of them with two points, or summits, 


THE DELIVERER. 


127 


and one of these points is now called by 
the Arabs ‘the Mountain of Moses.’ But 
it is generally known as Mount Sinai, 
while the other is supposed to be Horeb. 

“It was here that took place the most 
wonderful of all the things which happen- 
ed to the Israelites ; for ‘ Mount Sinai was 
altogether on a smoke because the Lord 
descended upon it in fire ; and the smoke 
thereof ascended as the smoke of a furnace, 
and the whole mount quaked greatly.’ No 
one but Moses could go up on the moun- 
tain, for whoever went would surely die, 
and to Moses were given the ten com- 
mandments, which he was to repeat to the 
people. These commandments were not 
only for the children of Israel : they were 
for all the world, so long as the world 
should last. Our Saviour said, ‘ If ye love 
me, keep my commandments ;’ and these 
are his commandments, for he is God : 

“ ‘ Israel, in ancient days, 

Not only had a view 
Of Sinai in a blaze. 

But learned the gospel too ; 

The types and figures were a glass 
In which they saw the Saviour’s face.* 


128 SUNDA V EVENINGS AT ELMRIDGE. 

“ In spite of the first and the second of 
the commandments just given — ‘ Thou shalt 
have no other gods before me,’ and ‘ Thou 
shalt not make unto thee any graven im- 
age ’ — and although they had just seen the 
glory of God on Mount Sinai, the Israelites 
began to complain of Moses’ long stay on 
the mount, and insisted that Aaron should 
make them a golden calf to worship. This 
idol was probably made of wood covered 
with gold and shaped like one of the idols 
of Egypt, and the people danced and shout- 
ed before it, saying, ‘ These be thy gods, O 
Israel, which brought thee up out of the 
land of Egypt.’ Moses was so angry when 
he- saw it that he threw down the ‘ tables 
of testimony ’ and broke them beneath the 
mount; ‘and the Lord plagued the people’ 
for the sin of idolatry, while Aaron and his 
sons were fearfully punished. 

“ Other tables were afterward given to 
Moses, and God made a fresh covenant 
with his people ; and when the tabernacle 
was finished according to his directions, 
‘ the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle.’ 
This first house of worship was a large tent 


THE DELIVERER. 


129 


that could easily be moved ; ‘ and when the 
cloud was taken up from over the taber- 
nacle, the children of Israel went onward 
in all their journeys. For the cloud of the 
Lord was upon the tabernacle by day and 
the pillar of fire was on it by night, in the 
sight of all the house of Israel, through- 
out all their journeys.’ ” 

“Weren’t they afraid. Miss Harson ?” 
asked Edith, to whom this seemed very 
terrible. 

“ No, dear,” replied her governess, kind- 
ly, “ not more afraid than we are when we 
see the rainbow, which is God’s promise to 
us that there shall not be another flood to 
destroy the earth. The cloud and the fire 
were his promise to the Israelites that he 
would guide them to the promised land. 

“ These chosen people of God continued 
their journey murmuring and sinning and be- 
ing punished, and this it was that kept them 
so long out of the land of Canaan. They 
murmured at God’s dealings with them and 
rebelled against Moses, and at one time 
they wept all night because the men who 
had been sent into Canaan to bring a re- 


1 30 SUNDA Y E VENINGS A T ELMRIDGE. 

port of the land declared that there were 
giants there. They brought back the most 
delightful fruits, for it ‘ was the season of 
the first-ripe grapes,’ and one enormous 
cluster had to be carried between two upon 
a staff. There were also pomegranates 
and figs. The men said that the land was 
a beautiful land and full of milk and honey, 
just as they had been told, but that they 
had seen the children of Anak there, and 
these people were giants: ‘And there we 
saw the giants, the sons of Anak, which 
come of the giants ; and we were in our 
own sight as grasshoppers, and so we were 
in their sight.’ 

“ On hearing this story the children of 
Israel would go no farther, but even pro- 
posed making themselves a captain and 
returning into Egypt. Because there were 
giants in the way they were utterly discour- 
aged about the promised land. In vain 
did Joshua and Caleb — who were officers 
of the people, and who had been among 
the band that went into the land of Canaan 
— assure them that if the Canaan ites were 
tall and lived in strong castles, the Lord was 


THE DELIVERER. 


I3I 

Stronger, and that he had promised to be 
with them and give them the land ; all that 
they had to do was to act like men and put 
their trust in God. But the Israelites were 
so frightened and angry that they were 
quite beside themselves, and even threat- 
ened to kill Joshua and Caleb. 

“ It was a most discouraging time ; the 
people were crying because of the giants 
and crying to go back to Egypt, and their 
ingratitude and obstinacy drew down the 
displeasure of God upon them. He threat- 
ened to smite them with the pestilence and 
to disinherit them, also to make of Moses a 
greater and mightier nation than they. But 
Moses prayed earnestly to the Lord to spare 
them, ‘ and the people mourned greatly ' 
when Moses told them of the dreadful 
things with which God had threatened 
them. They continued, however, to mur- 
mur and sin, for ‘ they forgat God their 
Saviour, which had done great things in 
Egypt; wondrous works in the land of 
Ham, and terrible things by the Red Sea. 
They angered him also at the waters of 
strife, so that it went ill with Moses for 


1 32 SUNDA Y E VE KINGS A T ELMRIDGE. 

their sakes: because they provoked his 
spirit so that he spake unadvisedly with his 
lips.’ ‘The waters of strife’ meant the 
water that flowed from the rock at Meri- 
bah when Moses, angry at the people for 
their constant complaints, sinned against 
God by striking the rock thrice with his 
rod instead of simply speaking to it, as he 
had been commanded. ‘ He spake unad- 
visedly ’ in saying angrily, ‘ Hear now, ye 
rebels ! must we fetch you water out of 
this rock?’ which was giving the glory of 
the miracle to himself and to Aaron instead 
of to God. 

“ ‘ It went ill with Moses,’ and with Aaron 
too, for God told them, ‘ Because ye believed 
me not to sanctify me in the eyes of the 
children of Israel, therefore ye shall not 
bring this congregation into the land which 
I have given them.’ It was a terrible pun- 
ishment not to enter the land to which 
they had now been looking forward for 
nearly forty years, and it shows how deeply 
Moses and Aaron must have sinned in that 
hasty movement when they feared that be- 
cause of the people’s wicked murmurs they 


THE DELIVERER. 


133 


would have to wander forty years more in 
the wilderness. God says that they did 
not believe him — did not believe, perhaps, 
that just speaking to the rock would be 
enough to bring forth water — and, instead 
of doing as he was told, Moses took what 
he thought a better way and struck the 
rock twice with his rod. 

“ After this Aaron died, and was buried 
on Mount Hor without even seeing the 
‘goodly land* to which the children of 
Israel were journeying, but God gave his 
servant Moses, from the top of Mount 
Pisgah, a complete view of the country in 
which the Israelites were to live after his 
death. ‘From Nebo he looked down on 
the palm trees of Jericho, close under his 
feet, and from the deep, warm valley 
through which the Jordan was gleaming 
far across to yon boundless sea; from Jez- 
reel with its waving corn to Eshcol with 
its luxuriant vines ; from Bashan with its 
kine to Carmel with its rocks dropping 
honey ; from Lebanon with its rampart of 
snow south again to the dim edge of the 
desert ; and as he feasted his eyes on what 


1 34 SUNDA Y E VENINGS A T ELMRIDGE. 

had so long been the land very far off, and 
what to the fretful host in the wilderness 
had seemed no better than a myth or mir- 
age, as the splendid domain spread out, 
hill and valley, field and forest, in the bright 
garb of spring, — the Lord said, “ This is the 
land ! This is the land which I sware unto 
Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, saying, I will 
give it to thy seed.” ’ 

“ Moses, the servant of the Lord, died 
when he was one hundred and twenty 
years old, but he was not like an old man, 
for his eye was not dim nor his natural 
strength lessened ; the wonderful beauty 
which had preserved him from death when 
an infant, and had raised him to a royal 
palace, was in no wise destroyed. He did 
not die from old age, but because God’s 
good time for him to die had come. 

“ Moses is called a prophet, and he 
prophesied of Christ, saying, ‘The Lord 
thy God will raise up unto thee a Prophet 
from the midst of thee, of thy brethren 
like unto me ; unto him shall ye hearken.’ 

“Many things in our Saviour’s life recall 
the life of Moses. ‘For example, Moses 


THE DELIVERER. 


135 


was born of parents in obscure and hum- 
ble station — peasants, exiles, slaves — and 
Christ, born of a poor virgin, was called 
the carpenter’s son, whilst the ark of bul- 
rushes finds its equivalent in the manger 
at Bethlehem. Moses in his infancy had 
wellnigh fallen a victim to the wrath of 
Pharaoh ; Jesus was only snatched by a 
hand divine from the cruelty of Herod. 
The “proper child,” the son of Abraham, 
beautiful exceedingly, is suggestive of that 
fairest of all men whom God anointed with 
the oil of gladness above all his fellows. 
And “ the man Moses, exceeding meek,” 
makes us think of Him who says, “ Come 
unto me, all ye that labor, for I am meek 
and lowly.” ’ Moses was the lawgiver ; 
Christ, the Saviour. Moses founded the 
Jewish Church, but Christ was the Found- 
er of the great Church of the redeemed, 
‘which no man could number, of all nations 
and kindreds, and people and tongues.’ 

“ When Moses knew, that he was to die, 
he did not repine nor ask for longer life, 
but, having reminded the Israelites of all 
God’s mercies to them, and blessed them. 


1 36 SUNDA Y E VENINGS A T ELMRIDGE. 

he made Joshua leader in his stead, and 
then died oh the mountain from which he 
had seen the promised land. We do not 
know how he died nor where he was 
buried, only that God buried him in ‘a val- 
ley in the land • of Moab, over against 
Bethpeor ; but no man knoweth of his 
sepulchre unto this day.’ Some beautiful 
verses have been written about that mys- 
terious grave, and I will read them to you,” 
added Miss Harson ; “ they are called 

‘“THE BURIAL OF MOSES. 

“ ‘ By Nebo’s lonely mountain, 

On yon side Jordan’s wave, 

In a vale in the land of Moab, 

There lies a lonely grave. 

And no man dug that sepulchre. 

And no man saw it e’er. 

For the angels of God upturned the sod 
And laid the dead man there. 

“ ‘ That was the grandest funeral 
That ever passed on earth, 

But no man heard the tramping 
Or saw the train go forth. 

Noiselessly as the daylight 
Comes when the night is done 
And the crimson streak on ocean’s cheek 
Grows into the great sun — 


THE DELIVERER. 


‘ Noiselessly as the springtime 
Her crown of verdure weaves, 

And all the trees on all the hills 
Open their thousand leaves, — 

So, without sound of music 
Or voice of them that wept, 

Silently down from the mountain’s crown 
The great procession swept. 


‘ Perchance the bald old eagle 
On gray Belhpeor’s height 
Out of his rocky eyrie 

Looked on the wondrous sight ; 
Perchance the lion, stalking. 

Still shuns that hallowed spot, 

For beast and bird have seen and heard 
That which man knoweth not. 


‘ But when the warrior dieth. 

His comrades in the war 
With arms reversed and muffled drum 
Follow the funeral-car; 

They show the banners taken. 

They tell his battles won, 

And after him lead his masterless steed. 
While peals the minute-gun. 


‘ Amid the noblest of the land 
Men lay the sage to rest. 

And give the bard an honored place. 
With costly marbles drest. 

In the great minster transept 
Where lights like glories fall. 

And the choir sings and the organ rings 
Along the emblazoned wall. 


138 SUNDAY EVENINGS AT ELMRIDGE. 


“ ^ This was the bravest warrior 
That ever buckled sword, 

This the most gifted poet 
That ever breathed a word, 

And never earth’s philosopher 
Traced with his golden pen 
On the deathless page truth half so sage 
As he wrote down for men. 

“ ‘ And had he not high honor — 

The hillside for his pall 
To lie in state while angels wait, 

With stars for tapers tall. 

And the dark rock-pines like tossing plumes 
Over his bier to wave. 

And God’s own hand in that lonely land 
To lay him in the grave — 


“ ‘ In that deep grave without a name 
Whence his uncoffined clay 
Shall break again — most wondrous thought !— 
Before the judgment-day. 

And stand with glory wrapped around 
On the hills he never trod. 

And speak of the strife that won our life 
With the incarnate Son of God ? 


“ ‘ O lonely tomb in Moab’s land ! 

O dark Beth-peor’s hill ! 

Speak to these curious hearts of ours 
And teach them to be still. 

God hath his mysteries of grace — 

Ways that we cannot tell ; 

He hides them deep, like the secret sleep 
Of him he loved so well.’ ” 


THE DELIVERER. 1 39 

“ How beautiful that is !” said Clara, after 
a moment of silence. 

“ It’s grand,” added Malcolm ; “it sounds 
like an organ.” 

“That is an excellent comparison,” re- 
plied his governess, “and I am glad that 
you both seem to understand this fine 
poem so well. Edith is too young yet, I 
think, quite to appreciate it.” 

But Edith declared that she too liked it ; 
it made her think of bells ringing. 

“That is the rhythm, dear,” said Miss 
Harson, “ which is peculiarly musical. But 
I do not think that any of you can quite un- 
derstand this verse — the next to the last : 

“ ‘ In that deep grave without a name 
Whence his uncoffined clay 
Shall break again — ^most wondrous thought ! — 

Before the judgment-day. 

And stand with glory wrapped around 
On the hills he never trod, 

And speak of the strife that won our life 
With the incarnate Son of God.’ 

Fifteen hundred years after Moses died 
he appeared again on earth — on the holy 
mountain where the Lord Jesus was trans- 
figured — when the amazed disciples saw 


140 SUNDAY EVENINGS AT ELMRIDGE. 

that, ‘ as he prayed, the fashion of his coun- 
tenance was altered, and his raiment was 
white and glistering. And behold there 
talked with him two men, which were 
Moses and Elias, who appeared in glory, 
and spake of his decease which he should 
accomplish at Jerusalem.’ The prophet 
like unto himself whom God would raise 
up among the Hebrews had appeared, and 
Moses, who was in so many things like 
the greater One of whom he prophesied, 
was now seen with him in the very heart 
of that holy land where his earthly feet 
had never trod. 

“ ‘ The infancy of Moses — which to chil- 
dren is the most interesting part of his life 
— teaches us some great truths, and these 
truths have been set forth in a short ser- 
mon to young readers. Among other 
things, it is said in this sermon that God 
would teach us to trust in him — to remem- 
ber that he is constantly watching over us, 
that nothing can happen to us without his 
knowledge, that he can save us from the 
greatest danger if we ask him, and can 
turn into a blessing what seems the very 


THE DELIVERER. 


I4I 

worst thing that could possibly happen 
to us.’^ 

The children, whose idea of Moses had 
always been that of a little baby in the 
bulrushes, were beginning to feel that 
there was a great deal which they had 
never thought of to be learned from the 
Old Testament. 


CHAPTER IX. 


LITTLE SAMUEL. 

HERE is another little boy in the 



i Bible,” said Miss Harson, on the 
next Sunday evening, whom I think all 
children love. Can you tell me who he 


is ? 


Malcolm and Clara replied both together, 
“ Samuel,” and Edith said, rather dolefully, 
“that she was just going to say that too.” 

“Never mind, Edie,” replied her brother, 
kindly; “it’s all the same, then, as if you 
really said it, and a great deal nicer of you 
than of us, because you’re the youngest.” 

The little sister put up her mouth to be 
kissed and looked as bright as ever. 

“ Every child,” continued their governess, 
“ knows the story of little Samuel, the child- 
prophet, of whom so many beautiful pictures 
and statuettes have been made kneeling in 
his little white robe with his hands joined in 


142 


LITTLE SAMUEL. 1 43 

prayer; and it is difficult to remember that 
the sweet, innocent-looking child grew to be 
a venerable old man — one of God’s great- 
est prophets and the judge, or ruler, of 
Israel. Samuel was God’s child from the 
beginning, and his name means ‘ asked of 
God’ or ‘heard of God.’ We shall see 
why this name was given him. 

“ Elkanah and Hannah, the parents of 
Samuel, were pious people who went from 
home every year to a place called Shiloh, 
‘ to worship and to sacrifice unto the Lord 
of hosts ;’ and always at this yearly festival 
Hannah prayed that God would give her 
a child, and year after year she wept and 
lamented because her prayer was not 
granted. Then Hannah made a vow, or 
promise, that if God would give her the 
son she desired so much she would ‘give 
him unto the Lord all the days of his life,’ 
and that there should ‘ no razor come upon 
his head.’ Thus Samuel’s mother promised 
before he was born that he should be a 
Nazarite for life. 

“This does not mean one born in Naz- 
areth, for such are called ‘ Nazarenes ;’ it 


144 SUNDAY EVENINGS AT ELMRIDGE. 

means ‘ one separated by a vow/ and a Naz- 
arite must never cut off the hair from his 
head or his face, must never drink wine 
and must never go near a dead person. 
It was a Jewish custom to take the vow of 
a Nazarite for a short time, and sometimes 
for a longer time, and afterward, when the 
vow was over, the Nazarite might do as 
others did, but Samuel was made a Nazarite 
as long as he lived, and so were Samson 
and John the Baptist. The Nazarites were 
a class by themselves, like the prophets, 
and they were very much honored as holy 
and self-denying men. 

“ While Hannah was praying so earnest- 
ly in her heart in the temple — or tabernacle, 
for the real temple had not yet been built — 
her lips moved, but she made no sound, 
and Eli, the high priest and judge of Israel, 
who sat near ‘by a post of the temple of 
the Lord,’ reproved her for being drunken, 
as he supposed, and sternly ordered her to 
put away her wine.” 

“What a shame,” exclaimed Clara, “when 
she was such a good woman !” 

“ Even good people, dear, are often mis- 


LITTLE SAMUEL. 


145 


understood, but Hannah had ‘ the ornament 
of a meek and quiet spirit,’ and, instead of 
making an angry reply, she respectfully 
answered the venerable priest and ruler 
that she was a woman of a sorrowful spirit 
who had taken neither wine nor strong 
drink, but was pouring out her soul before 
the Lord. ‘ Count not thine handmaid,’ she 
said, ‘ for a daughter of Belial ’ — or wicked- 
ness — ‘ for out of the abundance of my com- 
plaint and grief have I spoken hitherto.’ 
7'hen Eli saw his mistake, and, pleased 
with her gentle answer, he spoke kindly 
and encouragingly to Hannah, and hoped 
that God would grant the petition she had 
asked of him. No longer ‘a woman of a 
sorrowful spirit,’ the wife of Elkanah went 
her way with a bright countenance, and 
after rising early the next morning to wor- 
ship before the Lord the pious couple went 
home to Ramah. 

“ Hannah’s prayer was answered at last, 
and a baby-boy was given to her; she called 
his name ‘ Samuel,’ saying, ‘ Because I have 
asked him of the Lord.’ When the yearly 
festival came round again, she stayed at 
10 


1 46 SUNDA Y E VENINGS A T EL MR ID GE. 

home, a happy mother, to take care of her 
infant child, telling her husband that she 
would not go up again until the boy was 
weaned, and then she would take him, that 
he might appear before the Lord, to whom 
he had been vowed, and abide in his tem- 



THE CHILD SAMUEL. 


pie for ever. ‘And when she had weaned 
him, she took him up with her, with three 
bullocks and one ephah of flour, and a bot- 
tle of wine, and brought him into the house 
of the Lord in Shiloh : and the child was 


LITTLE SAMUEL. 


147 


young.’ The little Samuel could not have 
been more than three years old when he 
was taken to Eli, and great must have been 
the surprise of the high priest at the sight 
of the child and the woman, whom he 



SAMUEL AND ELI. 


scarcely remembered until she said that 
she was the woman who once stood be- 
side him praying unto the Lord, and that 
she was praying for this very child. God 
had granted her petition, and now she had 
lent him to the Lord as long as he lived. 



148 SUNDA Y EVENINGS AT ELM RIDGE. 

“The good Hannah did not forget to 
thank God for his great mercy in answer- 
ing her prayer, and in the tabernacle where 
she had prayed that God would give her a 
son she prayed again and praised him with 
great rejoicing. Then, having solemnly 
given her child into the care of Eli, not to 
see him again for a whole year, she re- 
turned to Ramah with her husband.” 

“Wasn’t little Samuel frightened,” asked 
Edith, “ to be left by himself?” 

“ He may have been just at first,” was 
the reply, “ for the Bible says that he was 
young ; but the old priest was probably 
very kind to him, and from this time he 
was kept in the tabernacle, ‘and the child 
did minister unto the Lord before Eli the 
priest’ He wore a sacred garment — an 
ephod, made, like those of the priests, of 
white linen, although he was a child — and, 
‘moreover, his mother made him a little 
coat, and brought it to him from year to 
year, when she came up with her husband 
to offer the yearly sacrifice.’ 

“ Hannah had other children to comfort 
her for the loss of Samuel — three sons and 


LITTLE SAMUEL. 


149 


two daughters — and the child grew from 
year to year, and, like the Lord Jesus, 
‘was in favor both with the Lord and 
also with men.’ 

“Samuel ministered before the Lord, 
being a child, girded with a linen ephod. 
His special duty seems to have been to 
put out the light burning in the sacred 
candlesticks in the tabernacle, and to open 
the doors at sunrise : ‘And ere the lamp of 
God went out in the temple of the Lord, 
where the ark of God was, and Samuel 
was laid down to sleep * ‘ and Samuel lay 
until the morning, and opened the doors of 
the house of the Lord.’f 

“The sons of Eli, the high priest, were 
very wicked men — ‘ they knew not the Lord ’ 
— and when Eli was a very old man, people 
told him such dreadful stories of their con- 
duct that he remonstrated with them ; but 
now ‘they hearkened not unto the voice of 
their father,’ because as children he had 
weakly indulged them in their own way. 
God sent a messenger to Eli to rebuke 
him for honoring his sons above him, and 

* I Sam. iii. 3. f i Sam. iii. 15. 


1 50 SUNDA Y E VENINGS A T ELMRIDGE. 

told him that because of his sin in this 
respect there should never be an old man 
among his descendants, but all who be- 
longed to his house should die in the 
flower of their age, and that for a sign 
that God meant this his two sons should 
both die in one day. 

“‘And the child Samuel ministered unto 
the Lord before Eli. And the word of the 
Lord was precious in these days : there was 
no open vision.’ God no longer appeared 
to his servants as he had to Abraham and 
to Moses, but ‘the word of the Lord’ some- 
times came to them in dreams or by a 
voice, as it now came to Samuel ; for when 
he was laid down to sleep in his accustomed 
place in the tabernacle, the Lord called him, 
and, awakened by the summons, he answer- 
ed, thinking it was his master who called 
him, ‘ Here am I.’ ” 

“ Oh,” exclaimed Edith, “ I do love to 
hear about Samuel being called in the 
night, but it makes me frightened too, 
for it was God calling him, wasn’t it. 
Miss Harson ?” 

“Yes, dear, it was God who called; but 


LITTLE SAMUEL. 


151 

there is nothing to be frightenea at in this. 
Samuel was to be his little messenger and 
prophet, as we shall see. 

“ The child ran at once to Eli, his master 
and guardian ; and, probably in answer to 
a question as to why he was there at that 
time of night, he said, ‘ I am here because 
thou calledst me.’ But Eli told him to lie 
down again, for he had not called him. 
Samuel obeyed at once — perhaps with a 
sleepy gladness to find that he was not 
wanted — and then he fell again into the 
heavy slumber of childhood. 

“‘And the Lord called yet a^ain, Sam- 
uel.’ A second time was the old man 
roused to see the white-robed figure of 
the half-awake child before him, and to 
hear the sleepy child’s voice saying, ‘ Here 
am I ; for thou didst call me.’ — ‘ The little 
one has surely been dreaming,’ thinks the 
priest as he says soothingly, ‘I called not, 
my son ; lie down again.’ The Bible says 
that Samuel did not yet know the Lord, 
neither was the word of the Lord revealed 
to him ; so that when God called him out 
of sleep to talk with, him, he could only 


1 5 2 SUNDA y E VENINGS A T ELMRIDGE, 

run to Eli and insist that he had sum- 
moned him. 

“The Lord called Samuel a third time, 
and, without complaining at being so often 
disturbed, he went again to the high priest, 
probably with half-shut eyes and the same 
sleepy voice as he said, ‘ Here am I ; for 
thou didst call me.’ 

“ Suddenly it flashed into Eli’s mind that 
the voice the child had heard was the voice 
of God. Trembling at the thought and 
wondering what God would deign to re- 
veal to this child instead of making it 
known to his high priest, he directed him 
what to do if the voice was heard again, 
and then told him, as before, to go and 
lie down in his place. 

“The sweet, obedient child does not 
hesitate to do as he is told, and seems 
to have no thought of fear, but as soon 
as the expected summons comes he an- 
swers with the words that Eli had put 
in his mouth: ‘Speak, for thy servant 
heareth.’ This is the only time that God 
is known to have talked with a child, and 
he now told Samuel of his intention to 


LITTLE SAMUEL. 


153 


judge the house of Eli for ever, ‘ for the 
iniquity which he knoweth ; because his 
sons made themselves vile, and he re- 
strained them not’ 

“ Young as he was, Samuel seems to have 
been too thoughtful again to disturb the old 
man’s rest, especially with such a painful 
message, but he lay until the morning and 
then opened the doors of the tabernacle as 
usual, for he ‘ feared to show Eli the vision.’ 
But when the high priest called him and 
asked him what it was that the Lord had 
said to him, charging him to hide nothing, 
for if he did God would certainly punish 
him, Samuel repeated every word that had 
been spoken to him by the voice in the 
night. 

“ Eli listened with a heavy heart ; and 
when he had heard God’s purpose of pun- 
ishing him through the sons whom he had 
ruined with indulgence, he said submis- 
sively, ‘ It is the Lord : let him do what 
seemeth him good.’ ” 

“ Poor old man !” said Clara, pityingly ; 
“ how bad he must have felt !” 

“ God had made Samuel a prophet while 


1 54 SUNDA Y E VENINGS A T ELMRIDGE. 

yet a child,” continued Miss Harson, “in 
giving him the message for Eli ; for we are 
told after this that he grew, ' and the Lord 
was with him, and did let none of his words 
fall to the ground. And all Israel from Dan 
to Beersheba knew that Samuel was estab- 
lished to be a prophet of the Lord.’ ” 

“ Miss Harson,” asked Malcolm, “ what 
is a prophet ? Is it some one who knows 
everything ?” 

“Try to think a little for yourself, Mal- 
colm,” was the reply. “Was not Samuel 
called a prophet just after he had told Eli 
what God would do to him — something 
that had not yet happened ? A prophet is 
one who can foretell the future, which has 
been revealed to him by God, and you will 
find that all the prophets mentioned in the 
Bible did this. 

“Samuel, the child ‘lent to the Lord,’ 
seemed continually to be saying, 

“ ‘ From youth to hoary age, 

My calling to fulfill, 

Oh, may it all my powers engage 
To do my Master’s will.’ ” 


I wish there was more about his beine 

o 


LITTLE SAMUEL. 


155 


called/’ said Clara ; “ it’s so very interest- 
ing.” 

“ It is indeed,” replied her governess; 
“and the great lesson that we may learn 
from Samuel’s childhood is that of perfect 
obedience. He obeyed not only promptly, 
but cheerfully, and did exactly as he was 
told. Few children would have been as 
ready as was Samuel to leave a comfort- 
able bed in the middle of the night — not 
only once, but three times — and run to 
whoever had seemed to call them. It 
would have been so much easier to think 
they had been mistaken each time, and 
to go to sleep again without trying to 
find out. 

“ ‘ How many,’ said a preacher once. 

‘ when they are called in the morning, 
when they have had their night’s rest and 
it is time to rise for the work of the new 
day, instead of jumping out of bed directly, 
prefer a little slumber, a little sleep, a little 
folding of the hands to sleep ! And so 
morning prayers are forgotten or said hur- 
riedly, and then indeed it is God who is 
calling the child as he called Samuel ; but 


1 56 SUNDA y E VENINGS A T ELMRIDGE. 

the child does not, like Samuel, say, “ Here 
am I, for thou didst call me.” ' 

“ But Samuel did not get up once only ; 
three times he went to Eli. Here is a won- 
derful pattern of obedience. How many 
boys and girls, when they think they hear 
somebody call them, though they are not 
quite certain but that they may be mistaken, 
leave what they are doing and go at once 
to see if they are wanted ? Many, I am 
afraid, in Samuel’s place, would have done 
just the opposite of what he did. Instead 
of going time after time, they would have 
said, ‘ I was mistaken before ; perhaps it 
may be so again. At any rate, no one can 
find any great fault with me for not answer- 
ing the call or obeying the bell’ — or what- 
ever it is — ‘ when I am not quite certain 
that I heard it. Any way, this will be a 
good-enough excuse for my going on a 
little longer with what I am doing; they 
can call again if they want me.’ 

“ It was because Samuel was ready each 
time to listen, though he did not know who 
it was that called him, that God kept on 
calling. But if we turn away and do not 


LITTLE SAMUEL. 


157 


wish to hear, maybe, instead of calling 
again, God will cease to speak to us and 
leave us to ourselves. Let us, then, like 
Samuel, be ready at once to obey the call 
of God, wherever and however it comes to 
us — in our own conscience or through his 
holy word or by those set over us — and 
whatever it calls us to do. Let us take 
for the motto of our lives the words that 
Eli bade Samuel say : ‘ Spp:ak, Lord ; for 

THY SERVANT HEARETH.’ 

“ ‘ By cool Siloain’s shady rill 
How fair the lily grows ! 

How sweet the breath, beneath the hill, 

Of Sharon’s dewy rose ! 

‘ Lo ! such the child whose early feet 
The paths of peace have trod, 

Whose secret heart with influence sweet 
Is upward drawn to God.’ ” 


CHAPTER X. 


SAMUEL THE PROPHET. 

\ 7E haven’t finished Samuel yet, have 
VV we, Miss Harson ?” asked Mal- 
colm, when Sunday evening came round 
again. “We want to hear more about 
him.” 

“There are many interesting things to 
hear about Samuel when he became a man,” 
was the reply, “ for he was the greatest 
character who had appeared among the 
Jews since the time of Moses.” 

“ Please tell us about him when he was a 
man,” said the three voices at once. 

“ The two sons of Eli were both slain at 
once in battle with the Philistines, and the 
sacred ark — ‘ the ark of the covenant,’ 
which the people had brought from the 
tabernacle at Shiloh that it might save 
them from the hands of their enemies — 
was taken. When Eli heard these dread- 


158 


SAMUEL THE PROPHET 1 59 

ful tidings, he fell from his seat and died, 
and Samuel became judge in his place. 

“The ark of God was taken by the Philis- 
tines into the house of their chief idol, Da- 
gon, a hideous-looking image with the head 
and hands of a man and the body of a fish. 



THE ARK OF THE COVENANT. 


The temple of Dagon at Gaza was pulled 
down by Samson when he died, and in this 
temple at Ashdod the sacred ark of the 
Israelites overthrew the image ; so that 
‘ Dagon was fallen upon his face to the 
ground before the ark of the Lord ; and 


l6o SUNDAY EVENINGS AT ELM RIDGE. 

the head of Dagon and both the palms 
of his hands were cut off upon the 
threshold ; only the stump of Dagon was 
left to him.’ The people of Ashdod 
were punished with sickness and death 
because of the ark of God, and when 
the Philistines sent it to another of their 
cities the same punishment followed it; 



THE TABERNACLE. 


and finally, after keeping the ark from 
the Israelites for seven months, they re- 
solved to send it back to them. 

“When the ark was at last set up in a 
city of the Israelites, ‘ the house of Israel la- 
mented after the Lord,’ for they had worship- 
ed the idols of the heathen nations around 
them ; and Samuel gathered them together 


SAMUEL THE PROPHET. l6l 

and charged them to put away their strange 
gods and serve the Lord only, and he would 
deliver them from the Philistines. The 
people gladly obeyed, and destroyed their 
idols and fasted for the sins of which they 
now heartily repented, and Samuel prayed 
for them unto the Lord. God heard his 
prayers and accepted his burnt-offering, 
and ‘ the Lord thundered with a great 
thunder on that day upon the Philistines 
and discomfited them ; and they were 
smitten before Israel.’ Samuel set up a 
monument near the place of this battle, 
and called it ‘ Eben-ezer,’ or ‘ the stone of 
help,’ saying, ‘ Hitherto hath the Lord 
helped us.’ This was to remind the 
Israelites of God’s faithfulness and mercy, 
and it has often been said since, ‘ Here 
we will set up our Ebenezer,’ meaning, 
‘We will always remember this instance 
of God’s love and mercy.’ 

“It is said that Samuel judged Israel 
all the days of his life, and to do this he 
went from one place to another every 
year as long as he was able to travel. 
His house was at Ramah, where people 


11 


1 62 SUNDA Y E VENINGS A T EL MRID GE. 

could come to him at all times, ‘ and there 
he built an altar unto the Lord/ 

“ When Samuel became an old man, he 
made his sons judges also, so that they 
might help him and go about in his stead; 
but it is sad to find that they behaved very 
much as the sons of Eli had done, and 
were so unjust and dishonest that the 
elders of the people went to Samuel to 
complain of them. They said that it 
would be better for them to have a king, 
like other nations, for the judge whom 
they loved and respected was too old to 
attend to his duties, and his sons were 
entirely different from him.” 

“Then Samuel was just as bad as Eli,” 
said Malcolm. “ I should think he would 
have remembered how God had punished 
him^ 

“Such things seem very strange to us 
as they are set forth in the history of the 
Israelites,” was the reply, “but we must 
not forget that they are happening all the 
time. 

“ Samuel was displeased with the people 
for asking fora king to judge them in place 


SAMUEL THE PROPHET. 163 

of his sons, but, instead of answering them 
in his anger, he prayed to God to direct him 
what to do. It seemed to him that after 
all he had done for the Israelites they were 
trying to get rid of him in his old age, but 
Samuel was too good a man to let these 
bitter thoughts influence his conduct. He 
would ask God what it was right for him 
to do, for to the last day of his life he 
was ready to say, ‘Speak, Lord, for thy 
servant heareth.' 

“ God told Samuel to do as the people 
desired, for they had not rejected him, but 
the Lord, that he should not reign over 
them, and, as to serve idols they had con- 
stantly forsakfm the true God ever since 
he brought them up out of Egypt, they 
could not be expected to treat Samuel 
any better. Yet he was directed to ‘pro- 
test solemnly unto them,’ and to show 
them what they would have to suffer un- 
der a king, and how different it would be 
from Samuel’s gentle and fatherly rule. 

‘ Nevertheless, the people refused to obey 
the voice of Samuel ; and they said. Nay, 
but we will have a king over us ; that we 


1 64 SUNDA Y E VENINGS A T ELM RIDGE. 

also may be like all the nations ; and that 
our king may judge us, and go out before 
us, and fight our battles.’ 

“ Again Samuel went to God for direc- 
tions, and God told him to make the people 
a king — one whom he would send to him 
the next day out of the land of Benjamin ; 
and Samuel should anoint him captain over 
Israel, that he might save the people from 
the hand of the Philistines.” 

“ I know,” said Clara, “ who it was that 
he made king : it was Saul ; and I always 
like to read about that.” 

“ It is a very interesting history,” replied 
her governess, “and we are coming directly 
to it. 

“ A man named Kish, of the tribe of Ben- 
jamin — a person of wealth and influence — 
had a son, named Saul, who was a young 
man of magnificent appearance, the hand- 
somest and tallest man among the children 
of Israel ; ‘ from his shoulders and upward 
he was higher than any of the people.’ 
Some of the asses belonging to his father’s 
herds had strayed away, and Saul took one 
of the servants and went in search of them. 


SAMUEL THE PROPHET. 165 

In the course of their wanderings they 
came to the place where Samuel lived, and 
the serv^ant advised Saul to stop and con- 
sult the man of God, as he could probably 
tell them where the asses were and save 
them further trouble. Saul objected that 
there was ‘ not a present to bring to the 
man of God,’ but the servant said, ‘ Behold, 
I have here at hand the -fourth part of a 
shekel of silver : that will I give to the man 
of God to tell us our way.’ 

“ Samuel was now a venerable old man 
with long white hair and beard, neither of 
which had ever been cut, and he was called 
‘ Samuel the Seer,’ seer being the ancient 
name for a prophet. He was held in 
great reverence, and people went to him 
from far and near to consult him about 
their affairs ; loaves of bread or the fourth 
part of a shekel of silver were paid for the 
answers. He was invited to preside at 
every sacrificial feast, and he seemed so 
holy and awful because of his constant in- 
tercourse with God that whenever he ap- 
peared unexpectedly people trembled at 
his approach. 


1 66 SUNDAY EVENINGS AT ELMRIDGE. 

“The day that Saul sought Samuel he 
met him as he was going up to a sacrifice, 
some maidens who had gone out to draw 
water having told him that the seer would 
be present there to ‘ bless the sacrifice,’ and 
that he would probably meet him on the 
way. ‘And when Samuel saw Saul, the 
Lord said unto him, Behold the man whom 
I spake to thee of! This same shall reign 
over my people.’ 

“ Saul asked Samuel where the seer’s 
house was, and Samuel told him that he 
was the seer and urged him to go with 
him to the place of sacrifice and to remain 
with him until the next day. He did not 
yet tell Saul that he was to be king of 
Israel, but said that the asses were found, 
and that all the desire of Israel was fixed 
on him and on his father’s house. 

“ Saul did not know what to make of 
this, as he belonged to an insignificant 
tribe and family, but he did as Samuel de- 
sired and went with him to the feast, where 
the prophet treated him with great honor. 
‘And when they were come down from 
the high place into the city, Samuel com* 


SAMUEL THE PROPHET. 


167 


muned with Saul upon the top of the 
house.’ Probably he then told him of 
what was in store for him ; for when they 
had reached the end of the city on Saul’s 
way home, Samuel took a vial of oil and 
poured it upon his head and kissed him, 
and said, ‘ Is it not because the Lord hath 
anointed thee to be captain over his in- 
heritance ?’ Samuel then gave the newly- 
made king directions what to do as he 
went on, and told him whom he would 
meet on the way and that he would be- 
come a prophet. 

“All these things came to pass as Samuel 
had said ; and when he had called the peo- 
ple together at Mizpeh, he commanded them 
to present themselves before the Lord by 
tribes and by thousands to select a king 
among them. Among the tribes, that of 
Benjamin was taken ; and among his fami- 
ly, Saul, the son of Kish, was taken, but he 
was not to be found. He had bashfully 
hidden himself, for he could not bear to 
face all the people ; and when he was 
brought out, he towered above the peo- 
ple, a head and shoulders taller than any 


1 68 SUNDAY EVENINGS AT ELMRIDGE. 

of them. He looked every inch a king 
in his majestic beauty; and when Samuel 
said to the people, ‘ See ye him whom 
the Lord hath chosen, that there is none 
like him among all the people?’ the peo- 
ple shouted with one voice, ‘ God save 
the king !’ ” 

“Why, that’s what they sometimes sing 
in England,” said Malcolm, in a surprised 
tone. 

“Yes,” replied his governess, “it is the 
national anthem, and the words were first 
uttered by the Israelites at the sight of their 
first king. They were delighted with his 
fine appearance and were triumphant that 
they were to have a king, like the nations 
around them, not heeding or not caring 
that God gave them a king in his anger. 
It was a day of rejoicing, and they lis- 
tened willingly to Samuel when he gave 
them a plan of the kingdom, which plan 
he afterward wrote in a book ‘ and laid up 
before the Lord.’ Then the aged prophet 
sent the crowd away to their homes, and 
Saul returned to his father’s house in 
Gibeah. 


SAMUEL THE PROPHET. 


169 


“ The young king began his reign gently 
and wisely, and Samuel watched over him 
with fatherly care. He did not resent it 
that so young a man had been set over 
him in authority, but did all that he could 
to keep the Israelites faithful to God and to 
prevent them from suffering for their own 
headstrong conduct. Sternly did he re- 
prove Saul for disobedience and rebellion 
against God, and at last came the dread- 
ful announcement, ‘ Because thou hast re- 
jected the word of the Lord, he hath also 
rejected thee from being king.’ Then Saul 
acknowledged that he had sinned because 
he had feared the people and obeyed their 
voice instead of fearing God, and he beg- 
ged Samuel to pardon his sin and turn 
again with him that he might worship the 
Lord. But the venerable prophet had only 
the stern words, ‘ I will not return with thee : 
for thou hast rejected the word of the Lord, 
and the Lord hath rejected thee from being 
king over Israel.’ 

“ Samuel was about to leave Saul for ever, 
when Saul, in his fear of losing him, seized 
the skirt of his long mantle and tore it. 


1 70 SUNDA Y E VENINGS A T ELMRIDGE. 

Samuel was not in the least moved to 
yield to Saul, because he had dishonored 
God, and those who honored not God 
received no honor from him who had 
served him faithfully from his earliest 
childhood. Looking at his torn robe, he 
said more sternly than ever, ‘ The Lord 
hath rent the kingdom of Israel from thee 
this day, and hath given it to a neighbor 
of thine that is better than thou.’ This 
‘neighbor’ was David, the son of Jesse, 
whom Samuel, by God’s command, soon 
after anointed king in Saul’s stead. But 
Saul had not yet seen him. 

“ Saul then begged the holy man of God 
that he would at least honor him before the 
people instead of letting them see that God 
had forsaken him, and also go with him 
that he might worship the Lord. To this, 
Samuel finally consented, and for the last 
time the faithful prophet and the disobe- 
dient king went up together; for ‘Samuel 
came no more to see Saul until the day of 
his death; nevertheless, Samuel mourned 
for Saul ; and the Lord repented that he 
had made Saul king over Israel.’ 


SAMUEL THE PROPHET. 171 

“The next we hear of Samuel is that he 
had taken David, whose life Saul had 
threatened, to live with him at Ramah, 
when David fled to him for protection and 
‘ told him all that Saul had done to him.’ 

“ Samuel, as a great prophet and teacher, 
had disciples, or pupils, who were called 
‘the sons of the prophets,’ and the settle- 
ment where they lived was ‘ the school of 
the prophets.’ One of the chief schools of 
the time was at Ramah, Samuel’s own home, 
and the dwellings of the students were small 
rustic huts thatched with leaves. Naioth, 
where the school of the prophets was built, 
was a part of the town of Ramah ; and the 
name means ‘ the habitations of Ramah.’ 
‘And Saul sent messengers to take David: 
and when they saw the company of the 
prophets prophesying, and Samuel stand- 
ing appointed over them, the Spirit of God 
was upon the messengers of Saul, and they 
also prophesied.’ In vain did Saul send 
messengers a second and a third time : the 
same thing happened to them, ‘and they 
prophesied likewise.’ Finally, the king 
went himself, for in his furious anger at 


1 7 2 SUNDA Y E VE KINGS A T ELM RID GE. 

David he was resolved to kill him ; but 
he, too, felt the power of the Spirit of 
God ‘and prophesied before Samuel in 
like manner,’ lying down all day and night 
without his clothing in a sort of trance ; 
for God meant to deliver David out of 
his hand. 

“ Not long after this Samuel died, and all 
Israel lamented him and buried him in Ra- 
mah, even in his own city. ‘ The venerable 
prophet had again been called by God, but 
this time it was to go from earth to par- 
adise, and we may be sure that his answer 
at the close of his long and holy life was 
the same as that spoken in a child’s voice 
in the tabernacle : ‘ Speak, Lord, for thy 
servant heareth.’ 


‘ Hear what the voice from heaven declares, 
To those in Christ who die : 

Released from all their earthly cares, 

They reign with him on high.’ 


“A very wonderful thing happened after 
the death of Samuel. The Philistines had 
gathered so large an army against Israel 
that Saul was afraid, ‘ and his heart greatly 


SAMUEL THE PROPHET 1 73 

trembled.’ The Lord had now forsaken 
him entirely, and would not answer his 
prayers, nor make any response to his 
inquiries for direction. The king of Israel 
knew not which way to turn, until in his 
despair he thought of the ‘ familiar spirits,’ 
or wizards. But he himself had banished 
all these people from the country, because 
divination, which they practiced, was dis- 
pleasing to God as a sort of pagan idolatry 
and superstition. This was a common sin 
among the Israelites and many of the 
Eastern nations, and it was practiced by 
consulting the motions of the stars and 
clouds, and by lots, rods or wands, dreams, 
and many other things. The man who 
was forsaken of God turned to the works 
of darkness, and he told his servants to 
search and inquire privately if some woman 
could not be found who had dealings with 
familiar spirits, that he might go to her in 
his trouble and get her to divine for him. 
He was told that such a woman lived at 
Endor, and, not wishing her to know that 
the king who had forbidden such practices 
would stoop to them himself, he disguised 


1 74 SUNDA Y E VENINGS A T ELMRIDGE. 

his rank by changing his clothes for those 
of a common person, and ‘ came to the 
woman by night.’ This ‘ witch of Endor,’ 
as she is always called, is supposed to have 
lived in a cave outside of the town, and it 
must have been a gloomy and terrible 
place, well suited to the practice of her 
awful arts. 

“ But the woman was cautious in the use 
of her power and had no intention of risk- 
ing her life for all who called upon her. 
When, therefore, the disguised king ap- 
peared and said, T pray thee, divine unto 
me by the familiar spirit, and bring me 
him up whom I shall name unto thee,’ she 
reminded him of Saul’s stern order and ac- 
cused him of. laying a snare for her life, 
that he might report her disobedience 
and have her put to death. Saul prom- 
ised with the most solemn oath that no 
harm should come to her, and perhaps 
also tempted her with a large sum of 
money ; for presently she asked who it 
was that he wanted her to bring up unto 
him, and Saul answered, ‘ Bring me up 
Samuel.’ The king still hoped for the 


SAMUEL THE PROPHET. 1 75 

prophet’s counsel and advice, although the 
holy man had turned from him, when living, 
as one rejected of God. 

“ The Bible does not say what mysterious 
spells the witch of Endor used, but we cer- 
tainly know that she had no power over 
spirits except so far as God was pleased to 
allow it. He now chose to use this oppor- 
tunity to rebuke Saul and to make known 
to him the speedy punishment that awaited 
him. The king stood .trembling in the 
gloomy cave, silent and wondering whether 
Samuel would appear to him with a dread- 
ful aspect or look upon him kindly, as he 
used to do. A dim light burns in the dis- 
mal place, and he starts at every shadow. 
Suddenly the woman cries out in terror: 
she sees the venerable prophet, and at the 
same moment she discovers in her visitor 
the disguised king of Israel. ‘ Why hast 
thou deceived me?’ she says; ‘ for thou art 
Saul.’ The king soothes her fears and 
asks what it was that she saw. ‘ I saw,’ 
she replies, gazing with terrified eyes at 
the spot, ‘ gods ascending out of the earth.’ 
‘What form is he of?’ continues Saul, who 


1 76 SUIfDA Y E VENINCS A T ELMRIDGE. 

can think only of Samuel. Then the witch, 
looking steadily at the misty figure that 
gathers shape and character as it advances, 
says, ‘ An old man cometh up ; and he is 
covered with a mantle.’ This was the long 
robe reaching to the feet which Samuel 
always had worn, and Saul, knowing at 
once that the spirit of the prophet was be- 
fore him, ‘ stooped with his face to the 
ground and bowed himself.’ But no tones 
of fatherly love and pity met his ear; sternly 
as when he tore his mantle from the king’s 
detaining hand Samuel demanded, ‘ Why 
hast thou disquieted me to bring me up ?’ 
And poor troubled Saul answered, ‘ I am 
sore distressed ; for the Philistines make 
war against me, and God is departed from 
me, and answereth me no more, neither by 
prophets nor by dreams : therefore I have 
called thee that thou mayest make known 
unto me what I shall do.’ — ‘ If the Lord is 
become thine enemy,’ says the spirit of 
Samuel, ‘wherefore then dost thou ask of 
me ?’ and then he repeats to the trembling 
king the dreadful message which God has 
given him, and part of which Saul had 


SAMUEL THE PROPHET 1 77 

heard before ; but when he came to the 
words, ‘ Moreover, the Lord will also de- 
liver Israel with thee into the hand of the 
Philistines ; and to-morrow thou and thy 
sons shalt be with me : the Lord also shall 
deliver the host of Israel into the hand 
of the Philistines,’ the king fell in a swoon 
on the ground, overcome with sorrow and 
the want of food. 

“ Saul’s end was a very sad one — not 
only that he and his sons were killed the 
next day in the battle of Gilboa and the 
Israelites were routed with dreadful slaugh- 
ter, as Samuel had foretold, but that it was 
an end apparently without hope. There 
was no return to the Lord against whom 
he had sinned ; and when he was dead, his 
kingly crown and bracelet were taken from 
his body and brought to the ‘ neighbor bet- 
ter than he ’ whom God had placed on his 
throne, while his enemies stripped off his 
armor and put it in the temple of their god- 
dess Ashtaroth, treating the dead king with 
barbarous disrespect. 

“ But righteous Samuel, wrapping his 
mantle about him to lie down again to his 


12 


1/8 SUNDAY EVENINGS AT ELM RIDGE. 

rest, might say with the Psalmist, ‘ As for 
me, I will behold Thy face in righteousness : 
I shall be satisfied when I awake, with thy 
likeness/ ” 


CHAPTER XI. 

THE YOUNG SHEPHERD. 

T he little Kyles were always glad when 
it was Sunday evening, because, they 
said, it was just like having church on pur- 
pose for them, and Miss Harson’s Bible 
stories were so much nicer than any other 
stories they could read. 

“ I wish he wasn’t dead,” said Edith, rather 
dismally, on this next Sunday evening. 

“Who do you wish wasn’t dead?” asked 
Malcolm. 

“Why, Samuel. I wanted him to stay a 
little boy ; but when he got to be a man, he 
was nice too, and now he’s — he’s dead.” 

“ But he was dead, dear,, when we first 
began to talk about him,” replied her gov- 
erness, soothingly, for the tears were just 
ready to flow — “ dead and in the paradise 
of God for thousands of years ; and to show 
how little he wished to come back again to 

179 


1 80 SUNDA Y E VENINGS A T ELMRJDGE. 

earth, did he not say to Saul, when he ap- 
peared to him in the cave of Endor, ‘ Why 
hast thou disquieted me ?’ We are going 
to learn now something about a young 
friend of the great prophet whom I think 
you will like quite as much as you like 
the prophet himself. 

“When Samuel was an old man, a boy 
named David was tending sheep among 
the hills of Bethlehem. His father’s name 
was Jesse, and this Jesse was the grandson 
of Ruth, of whom so beautiful a story is 
told in that part of the Bible which is called 
the book of Ruth. David was the young- 
est of a family of ten sons, and his name 
means ‘ the beloved,’ ‘ the darling,’ but he 
seems to have been treated very differently 
from Joseph the beloved, who was ordered 
about by his elder brothers and made to 
tend the sheep, which in Eastern countries 
is the work of slaves or the despised mem- 
bers of the family. The pastures of Beth- 
lehem are often mentioned in the Bible. 
The tower of shepherds, or the ‘ tower of 
Eden,’ where Israel spread his tent, and 
the place where the shepherds were ‘ abid- 



SHEPIIERD'^nOY 










1 8 2 SUNDA y E VENINGS A T ELM RID GE. 

ing in the field, keeping watch over their 
flocks by night,’ were both there. 

“ The little David carried in his hand a 
wand, or rod, to keep his dogs in order, 
and around his neck was fastened a wallet, 
or ‘ shepherd’s bag,’ in which he could car- 
ry anything that was needed. Alone for 
many hours of each day on the hills around 
his home, the boy had to find his own 
amusements ; and it was then, perhaps, 
that he learned to play on ‘ instruments of 
music,’ which he did so well, accompanying 
them with singing, that in after-times he 
was called ‘ the sweet singer of Israel.’ All 
through the Psalms, which David wrote, 
he shows how closely the works of God 
were studied during those days and nights 
when he was alone with his sheep and 
dogs, and in the early morning, while 
watching the glorious appearing of the 
sun, he sings of it : ‘ Which is as a bride- 
groom coming out of his chamber, and re- 
joiceth as a strong man to run a race. 
His going forth is from the end of the 
heaven, and his circuit unto the ends of 
it : and there is nothing hid from the heat 


THE YOUNG SHEPHERD. 


83 


thereof/ At evening he would think, as 
he watched the brilliant stars above him, 

‘ The heavens declare the glory of God ; 
and the firmament showeth his handy 
work. Day unto day uttereth speech, 
and night unto night showeth knowledge.’ 
The beautiful twenty-third psalm, too, with 
its words of trust, ‘The Lord is my shep- 
herd ; I shall not want. He maketh me 
to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth 
me beside the still waters,’ came, perhaps, 
into the shepherd-boy’s thoughts in some 
noonday heat when food and drink had 
given out and he solaced himself with 
‘ singing songs to Him that made him.’ 

“Sometimes the shepherd and his flock 
were in danger from the wild beasts which 
abounded in Judea, and this danger is often 
alluded to. In Psalm vii. 2 are the words, 
‘ Lest he tear my soul like a lion, rending it 
in pieces, while there is none to deliver;’ 
and again: ‘Save me from the lion’s mouth;’ 
and David tells Saul, ‘ Thy servant kept his 
father’s sheep, and there came a lion and a 
bear, and took a lamb out of the flock : and 
I went out after him and smote him, and 


1 84 SUNDAY EVENINGS AT ELMRIDGE. 

delivered it out of his mouth ; and when he 
arose against me, I caught him by his beard, 
and smote him, and slew him. Thy servant 
slew both the lion and the bear.’ ” 

“ That was splendid,” exclaimed Malcolm, 
“ but I don’t see how he could do it.” 

“ It is the same boy who afterward killed 
a giant with only ‘ a smooth stone of the 
brook,’ ” was the reply, “and the brave and 
faithful little shepherd showed his perfect 
trust in One mighty to save in the ninety- 
first psalm, expressed in the beautiful 
hymn : 


“ ‘ God shall charge his angel-legions 
Watch and ward o’er thee to keep, 

Though thou walk through hostile regions, 

Though in desert-wilds thou sleep. 

“ ‘ On the lion, vainly roaring 

On his young, thy foot shall tread. 

And, the dragon’s den exploring. 

Thou shalt bruise the serpent’s head.’ ” 

“ I think it is beautiful about David, Miss 
Harson,” said Clara, “and he ought to have 
been a king.” 

“ God took his own way of making him 
fit to be one,” was the reply, “but the time 


THE YOUNG SHEPHERD. 185 

was coming when the ‘ little one ’ of the 
family would be preferred before the others. 
And this was a time of great solemnity in 
the little town of Bethlehem. Once a year 
— perhaps at the first new moon — a sacrificial 
feast was held ‘ for all the family,’ as David 
told Jonathan, but the youngest son was 
not present on this occasion. It is thought 
that it was at this feast, or one like it, while 
Jesse was assembled with his nine sons and 
the elders of the town, the prophet Samuel 
suddenly appeared, driving a heifer before 
him and carrying in his hand a horn of the 
consecrated oil from the tabernacle. All 
were in great awe of this venerable servant 
of God, and it is said that ‘ the elders of the 
town trembled at his coming, and said, 
Comest thou peaceably ?’ They were 
afraid that he might have been sent by 
God to bring them to judgment for their 
sins. 

** Samuel had been sent directly by God, 
on a strange errand, to Bethlehem, and this 
errand was to anoint a new^ king in place of 
Saul, whom God had ‘ rejected from reign- 
ing over Israel ’ because of his disobedience. 


1 86 SUNDA Y E VENINGS A T ELMRIDGE. 

So, when the elders tremblingly inquired 
if he came peaceably, he replied, ‘ Peace- 
ably ; I am come to sacrifice unto the Lord; 
sanctify yourselves and come with me to the 
sacrifice.’ 

“Jesse and his sons were there; and 
when the aged prophet noticed the com- 
manding height and the fine appearance 
of Eliab, the oldest of the ten, he said to 
himself, ‘Surely the Lord’s anointed is be- 
fore him,’ for had not Saul, whom he had 
anointed king before, been ‘a choice young 
man, and a goodly,’ and one who ‘ from his 
shoulders and upward was higher than any 
of the people’? ‘But the Lord said unto 
Samuel, Look not on his countenance, or 
on the height of his stature; because I have 
refused him; for the Lord seeth not as man 
seeth, for man looketh on the outward ap- 
pearance, but the Lord looketh on the 
heart.’ Then Jesse, probably wondering 
what the prophet had in store for the son 
whom he should approve of, called the next 
oldest and made him pass before Samuel, 
but the answer came: ‘Neither hath the 
Lord chosen this.’ Another one was ex- 


THE YOUNG SHEPHERD. 1 8 / 

amined and judged, and finally nine of 
the sons had passed before Samuel, who 
only said, ‘ The Lord hath not chosen these.’ 
Then the question was put, ‘Are these all 
thy children ?’ for the Lord had told his 
prophet that he had provided himself a 
king among the sons of Jesse. The reply 
was made that there yet remained the 
youngest one, who was keeping the sheep; 
and Samuel said, ‘ Send and fetch him ; for 
we will not sit down till he come hither.’ 

“ David was sent for at once, for Samuel’s 
word was law to all who heard him, and pres- 
ently there entered into the assembly a youth 
who is described as ‘ ruddy, and withal of a 
beautiful countenance and goodly to look 
to.’ His surprise was great at being ‘ taken 
from the sheepfolds’ and brought face to 
face with Samuel the prophet, who is said 
to have whispered into his ear the great 
elevation in store for him. As soon as 
David appeared the Lord said to Samuel, 
‘Arise, anoint him : for this is he.’ Very 
simple indeed is the scriptural account of 
this important ceremony ; only the words, 
‘Then Samuel took the horn of oil and 



1 88 SUNDA Y E VENINGS A T ELMRIDGE. 

anointed him in the midst of his brethren ; 
and the Spirit of the Lord came upon David 


DAVID ANOINTED. 

from that day forward. So Samuel rose up 
and went to Ramah.’ 

“ There seems to have been no elation on 
David’s part, and the future king- of Israel 
was evidently treated with no more consid- 
eration in the family circle than he had 
hitherto been. He was sent back to the 


THE YOUNG SHEPHERD. 


sheepfolds from whence he was taken, 
wondering very much, no doubt, at the 
prophet’s action, but still regarding him- 
self as the youngest and the least import- 
ant son of a numerous family. 

“And to think that he was really a king!” 
exclaimed Clara, who had a great admira- 
tion for crowned heads. 

“God did not forget it,” replied Miss 
Harson, “ but he wished him to be a sim- 
ple shepherd-boy for a while longer. 

“We next hear that King Saul was 
troubled by an evil spirit, for the Spirit 
of the Lord had departed from him and 
rested upon David. The ‘ evil spirit ’ that 
troubled the king is supposed to have 
been temporary madness, but after his 
first friendship for David he showed an 
evil spirit toward him all the days of 
his life. 

“Saul’s attendants advised him to send for 
some skilled musician — ‘a cunning player 
on the harp ’ — to charm away his melan- 
choly ; and when he told them to find such 
a person and bring him to him, one of them 
answered at once : ‘ Behold, I have seen a 


1 90 SUNDAY EVENINGS AT ELM RIDGE, 

son of Jesse the Bethlehemite, that is cun- 
ning in playing, and a mighty valiant man, 
and a man of war, and prudent in matters, 
and a comely person, and the Lord is with 
him.’ This was such an attractive charac- 
ter that the king at once sent messengers 
to Jesse with the despotic command, ‘ Send 
me David thy son which is with the sheep.’ 
Jesse obeyed at once, and sent, besides, a 
present to Saul, who loved David as soon 
as he saw him, and made him his armor- 
bearer. He sent another message to Jesse, 
begging that the lad might remain with him, 
because he had found fav r in his eyes. 

“Wonderful indeed was the effect of the 
young shepherd’s music upon the afflicted 
king, for ‘it came to pass, when the evil 
spirit from God was upon Saul, that David 
took a harp, and played with his hand : so 
Saul was refreshed, and was well, and the 
evil spirit departed from him.’ 

“ David had returned again to his home 
and his sheep-tending, and Saul seemed to 
have forgotten all about him, although he 
had done him so great a service and had 
‘ found favor in his sight.’ But the favor 


THE YOUNG SHEPHERD. 191 

of kings is very fickle, and is not to be 
depended on. 

“There was great excitement among the 
Israelites because of their enemies the Phil- 
istines, and the two armies were drawn up 
for battle at a place called Ephes-dammim. 
‘And the Philistines stood on a mountain 



DAVID’S HARP. 


on the one side, and Israel stood on a 
mountain on the other side ; and there 
was a valley between them.’ 

“A gigantic Philistine named Goliath of 
Gath went out from the camp and called 
for an Israelite to come and fight with him 
and to decide the battle. ‘ If he be able to 


192 SUNDAY EVENINGS AT ELMRID 6 E. 

fight with me and to kill me,’ he said, ‘ then 
will we be your servants ; but if I prevail 
against him and kill him, then shall ye be 
our servants and serve us.’ But who of 
the Israelites could match such a champion 
as this — a man who, besides his immense 
size and strength, was cased in thick armor 
that protected every part of him, ‘ while the 
staff of his spear was like a weaver’s beam ; 
and his spear’s head weighed six hundred 
shekels of iron ; and one bearing a shield 
went before him ’ ? Striding before them 
in all the consciousness of his terrible 
strength, ‘ the Philistine said, I defy the 
armies of Israel this day ; give me a man, 
that we may fight together.’ But no one 
offered to meet him, and the Israelites and 
their king were 'dismayed’ and ‘greatly 
afraid.’ 

“Jesse’s three eldest sons had followed 
Saul to the battle, but David had returned 
to feed his father’s sheep at Bethlehem. 
From there he was sent to his brothers 
with food, being ordered to inquire for their 
welfare and return again speedily; and as 
he approached the camp in the early morn- 


THE YOUNG SHEPHERD. 1 93 

ing he heard the well-known shout of the 
Israelite war-cry, for the two armies had 
been arrayed for battle, and ‘ the Philistine 
of Gath, Goliath by name,’ was uttering his 
challenge for the fortieth time. The im- 
pulsive lad darts into the midst of the lines 
to speak to his brothers, and then he sees 
the dismay of the Israelites, hears the 
heathen champion defy the armies of the 
living God, and is told that the king will 
enrich with great riches the man who kills 
him, and will give him his daughter and 
make his father’s house free in Israel. He 
goes from soldier to soldier, asking about 
it, and exclaims indignantly, ‘Who is this 
uncircumcised Philistine, that he should de- 
fy the armies of the living God ?’ His elder 
brother’s rebuke is unheeded, and presently 
his excited words are repeated to Saul, who 
sends for him and speaks to' him as a 
stranger, telling him that he is not able to 
fight with the Philistine, for he is ‘ but a 
youth, and he a man of war from his youth.’ 
Then David tells the king that he slew a 
lion and a bear when they came to steal a 
lamb from the flock, and adds confidently, 

13 


1 94 SUNDA Y E VENINGS A T ELMRIDGE. 

‘ This uncircumcised Philistine shall be as 
one of them, seeing he hath defied the ar- 
mies of the living God !’ But he also says 
more humbly : ‘ The Lord that delivered 
me out of the paw of the lion, and out of 
the paw of the bear, he will deliver me out 
of the hand of this Philistine.’ Saul was 
now convinced that through Him in whom 
he trusted the slight-looking lad before 
him was more powerful than the Philistine 
giant, and he said to him, ‘ Go, and the Lord 
be with thee.’ 

“ It was a strange battle, and the com- 
batants seemed most unequally matched, 
for after trying Saul’s armor and finding 
its weight troublesome David refused to 
wear it. ‘And he took his staff in his hand, 
and chose him five smooth stones out of 
the brook, and put them in a shepherd’s 
bag which he had, even in a scrip ; and his 
sling was in his hand ; and he drew near to 
the Philistine. And the Philistine came on 
and drew near unto David ; and the man 
that bare the shield went before him.’ 

“ Suddenly the giant stopped and scorn- 
fully surveyed his adversary, ‘ for he was 


THE YOUNG SHEPHERD, 1 95 

but a youth and ruddy, and of a fair coun- 
tenance then he burst forth into a fit of 
rage that the Israelites had dared to insult 
him with such a champion as this — not only 
a slight, fair youth, but without arms of any 
kind, carrying only a staff against his pow- 
erful sword and spear. Lashing himself 
into a perfect fury, he cried : ‘ Am I a dog, 
that thou comest to me with staves ?’ and 
then he began to curse and to swear by his 
heathen gods, and he threatened David not 
only that he would kill him, but that because 
of this insult his dead body should be de- 
voured by the fowls of the air and the beasts 
of the field.” 

“ Oh,” cried Edith, in dismay ; “ I hope 
the wicked giant didn’t get him ?” 

“No, dear, he did not; for God delivered 
David. 

“ This was a terrible threat from so strong 
an enemy, but the young Israelite does not 
falter. More are they that are with him 
than all that can be against him, and con- 
fidently he makes answer: ‘Thou comest 
to me with a sword, and with a spear, and 
with a shield: but I come to thee in the 


1 96 SUN DA Y E VENINGS A T ELM RIDGE. 

name of the Lord of hosts, the God of the 
armies of Israel, whom thou hast defied. 
This day will the Lord deliver thee into 
mine hand ; and I will smite thee, and take 
thine head from thee ; and I will give the car- 
cases of the host of the Philistines, this day, 
unto the fowls of the air, and to the wild 
beasts of the earth : that all the earth may 
know that there is a God in Israel. And 
all this assembly shall know that the Lord 
saveth not with sword and spear ; for the 
battle is the Lord’s, and he will give you 
into our hands.’ David’s boasting even 
exceeded that of Goliath, and it sounds 
presuming; but he was careful to say ‘the 
battle is the Lord’s,’ not mine, ‘and he will 
give you into our hands.’ 

“ At these words the giant rushed at once 
upon his puny adversary, expecting an easy 
victory ; but David drew a stone from his 
shepherd’s bag and hurled it with such di- 
rect aim that it sunk into the giant’s fore- 
head, ‘and he fell upon his face to the 
earth.’ ” 

“Good!” exclaimed Malcolm, excitedly, 
“Wish I’d been David!” 


THE YOUNG SHEPHERD. 1 9 / 

“‘So David prevailed over the Philistine 
with a sling and with a stone, and smote the 
Philistine and slew him ; but there was no 
sword in the hand of David. Therefore, 
David ran and stood upon the Philistine, 
and took his sword and drew it out of the 



DAVID AND GOLIATH. 


sheath thereof, and slew him, and cut off 
his head therewith.’ ” 

“That seems dreadful,” said Clara, with 
a shudder, “but I suppose he had to do it.” 

“ It was a barbarous custom in ancient 
times,” replied Miss Harson, “ to cut off 
the head of a vanquished enemy, and Saul 
had demanded the giant’s head as a proof 


198 SUNDAY EVENINGS AT ELM RIDGE. 

of victory. With what anxiety must the 
king and his army have waited for the end 
of this unequal battle ! And what a shout 
the triumphant Israelites raised when they 
saw that their boyish champion was the 
victor! The Philistines fled in dismay at 
the death of their champion, and, shout- 
ing their war-cry, the men of Israel and 
of Judah pursued them to the valley and 
gates of Ekron, one of the Philistine towns. 
The slaughter was great, and David’s boast- 
ful words were all fulfilled, for ‘ the carcases 
of the host of the Philistines ’ lay along the 
whole way to Gath and Ekron. Goliath’s 
head was taken to Jerusalem, but David 
kept his massive armor as a trophy of his 
victory. 

“ Hitherto, David had been insignificant 
and unknowm, but now he was made much 
of at the court of Saul, and Jonathan, the 
king’s son, loved him as his own soul. To 
show how strong this love was it is said that 
‘ the soul of Jonathan was knit with the soul 
of David,’ than which nothing could be closer. 
He could scarcely do enough to show his 
love and admiration for the youthful hero ; 


THE YOUNG SHEPHERD. 1 99 

he even ‘ stripped himself of the robe that 
was upon him, and gave it to David, and 
his garments, even to his sword, and to his 
bow and to his girdle.’ Every one made 
much of the son of Jesse, for he had done 
the whole country a great service, ‘and 
Saul set him over the men of war, and he 
was accepted in the sight of all the people, 
and also in the sight of Saul’s servants.’ 
Jonathan had made a covenant, or prom- 
ise, with him that they should be friends 
always, ‘ because he loved him as his own 
soul.’ 

“The shepherd-boy’s head might easily 
have been turned by all this honor and 
the sudden change from - the lonely sheep- 
pastures to the luxury of a royal palace; 
but it is expressly said that ‘ he behaved 
himself wisely,’ and when he was first men- 
tioned to Saul as ‘ cunning in playing,’ he 
was also described as ‘ prudent in matters.’ 
It was well for him that he was so, for the 
king soon began to show his jealousy of 
the favorite who was put above him in the 
songs of triumph for the victory of Israel 
over the Philistines ; for they said that 


200 SUNDAY EVENINGS AT ELM RIDGE. 

‘Saul had slain his thousands, and David 
his ten thousands.’ ‘And Saul was very 
wroth, and the saying displeased him ; and 
he said. They have ascribed unto David 
ten thousands, and to me they have ascribed 
but thousands ; and what can he have more 
but the kingdom ? And Saul eyed David 
from that day and forward.’ He watched 
him with jealous eyes, ‘ seeking occasion 
against him,’ and the evil spirit came upon 
him again. David brought his harp and 
played as before to soothe Saul’s mad- 
ness, with no thought of danger; but the 
king had a javelin in his hand, and sud- 
denly came the 6vil thought, ‘ I will smite 
David even to the wall with it.’ He made 
the attempt, but David, whose life was pre- 
served by God, ‘ avoided out of his presence 
twice.’ ‘And Saul was afraid of David, be- 
cause the Lord was with him, and was de- 
parted from Saul.’ ” 

“Wasn’t that because he was so wicked ?” 
asked Edith. 

“Yes, dear,” was the reply, “ for a heart 
that is full of evil passions is no dwelling- 
place for the Holy Spirit. It did not seem 


THE YOUNG SHEPHERD. 


201 


to be a good thing for Saul to have been 
made king, and he grew worse instead 
of growing better. 

“ David was removed from his attendance 
on the king and made captain over a thou- 
sand soldiers, but he could go and come as 
he pleased. ‘And David behaved himself 
wisely in all his ways ; and the Lord was 
with him.’ But Saul’s affection for him 
had turned to fear and dislike, and he now 
seemed anxious to get rid of him. He sent 
him to ‘ fight the Lord’s battles against the 
Philistines,’ saying to himself, ‘ Let not mine 
hand be upon him, but the hand of the 
Philistines be upon him.’ If successful, he 
was promised the king’s elder daughter for 
his wife — a promise that had been made to 
the slayer of the giant, but not fulfilled. 
The young hero was successful again, and 
married the king’s daughter, but, in spite of 
this, Saul ‘ became his enemy continually.’ 
Nothing could be found against David, for 
he behaved himself more wisely than any 
one else at the court, and every one re- 
spected him, ‘ so that his name was much 
set by ;’ but Saul’s mad jealousy became 


202 SUNDAY EVENINGS AT ELMRIDGE. 

uncontrollable, and he ordered his son and 
his servants to kill him. 

“ David’s wife loved him very much, and 
Jonathan, his friend, ‘ delighted in him,’ so, 
instead of obeying his father’s cruel com- 
mand, Jonathan warned David to hide him- 
self in a secret place while he pleaded for 
him to the king, and he would tell him when 
it was safe for him to appear again. Jona- 
than’s pleading was so eloquent that the 
half-mad king seemed to be pacified by it, 
and he swore, ‘As the Lord liveth, he shall 
not be slain.’ 

“After another brilliant victory over the 
Philistines, in which the young captain de- 
feated them with great slaughter, Saul’s 
jealousy was roused again, and he tried a 
second time to kill David with his javelin. 
Again ‘ the sweet singer of Israel ’ escaped 
the blow and fled for his life. Saul sent to 
David’s house to kill him, but his wife let 
him down through a window and deceived 
the messengers who came to take him. 
David went to the prophet Samuel and 
told him of Saul’s ungrateful treatment, 
and Samuel took him to Naioth, where he 


THE YOUNG SHEPHERD. 203 

then dwelt. We already know what hap- 
pened to Saul’s messengers, and even to 
Saul himself, at the ‘ school of the proph- 
ets and, in the mean while, David, feel- 
ing no longer safe there, fled to Jonathan. 
The two friends made a fresh ‘ covenant ’ 
together, and Jonathan tried again to plead 
with his father for David ; but Saul was so 
angry at this that he even cast his javelin 
at his son, as he had done at David, and 
Jonathan could only return heavy-hearted 
to the brother-in-law whom he loved ‘as 
his own soul ’ and tell him to fly at once. 
It was a sad parting for the two loving 
friends, ‘and they kissed one another, and 
wept one with another, until David ex- 
ceeded. And Jonathan said to David, Go 
in peace, forasmuch as we have sworn both 
of us in the name of the Lord, saying, The 
Lord be between my seed and thy seed for 
ever. And he arose and departed : and 
Jonathan went into the city.’ ” 

“ What a horrid man that Saul was !” 
exclaimed Clara. 

“ He showed the evil passions of anger 
and jealousy very strongly,” replied her 


204 SUNDAY EVENINGS AT ELMRIDGE. 

governess, “ and should therefore be a 
warning to us. 

“ After this David was for years a wan- 
derer, pursued by his relentless enemy, 
whose life he twice spared when he was in 
his power. At last Saul and his three sons 
were slain by the Philistines at Mount Gil- 
boa, and David and the men that were with 
him ‘mourned and wept and fasted, until 
even, for Saul and for Jonathan his son, 
and for the people of the Lord, and for the 
house of Israel, because they were fallen by 
the sword.' The young man who brought 
the news was killed because, according to 
his own account, he had ‘ slain the Lord's 
anointed.’ But Saul had begged him to 
do this, for he was sorely wounded and 
could not live. The king’s crown and 
bracelet were brought to David, and again 
he was anointed king by the men of Judah. 
But, in spite of all the ill-treatment he had 
received from Saul, he mourned for him as 
his liege-lord and father, and for Jonathan, 
the most faithful and loving of friends. 

“ For seven years David lived at Hebron, 
where he had been sent by the Lord, and 


THE YOUNG SHEPHERD. 205 

governed the tribe of Judah, while Saul’s 
son, Ish-bosheth, reigned over Israel. The 
sacred history tells us that ‘ there was long 
war between the house of Saul and the 
house of David : but David waxed stronger 
and stronger, and the house of Saul waxed 
weaker and weaker.’ Several sons were 
born to David, and God prospered him in 
every way. 

“ When more than seven years had 
passed, Saul’s son was murdered, and his 
head was brought in triumph to David by 
the murderers. ‘ Behold,’ they said, ‘ the 
head of Ish-bosheth, the son of Saul thine 
enemy, which sought thy life : and the Lord 
hath avenged my lord the king, this day, of 
Saul and of his seed.’ But David, instead 
of rewarding them, as they expected, was 
grieved and angry at this sinful deed, and 
he ordered the men to be killed at once and 
their bodies hung over the pool in Hebron, 
because they had ‘ slain a righteous person 
in his own house upon his bed.’ For the 
son of Jesse faithfully kept the promise 
he had made to his father-in-law — that he 
would not cut off his seed after him nor de- 


2o6 SUNDAY EVENINGS AT ELMRIDGE. 

stroy his name out of his father’s house ; 
and he did what he felt to be right, in spite 
of Saul’s evil conduct to him. 

“ A third time was David anointed king, 
and this time by the elders of Israel, who 
had begged him to reign over them. He 
was now thirty years old, and ‘ he reigned 
thirty and three years over all Israel and 
Judah.’ The shepherd-boy was now the 
king of God’s chosen people ; and won- 
derful indeed was the way by which he had 
been led through hardships and dangers 
from a low estate to the highest in the land. 
One of David’s first acts after he became 
king was to take ‘ the stronghold of Zion ’ 
from the Jebusites and call it ‘the city of 
David.’ This was Jerusalem, which became 
‘ the capital of the kingdom, the residence 
of the royal family, and, more than all, the 
city of God.’ The yearly festivals were 
celebrated there, and the woman of Sama- 
ria said to the Saviour, ‘Ye say that in 
Jerusalem is the place where men ought to 
worship.’ Magnificent edifices were built, 
fortifications were erected, and the ark of 
God, ‘ which had been before without a fixed 


THE YOUNG SHEPHERD. 


207 


abode, was brought into the new city with 
religious ceremonies peculiarly joyful and 
solemn.” 

“Then it was David who founded Jeru- 
salem?” asked Malcolm. 

“ Yes ; the little brother who was thought 
of no consequence among Jesse’s ten sons 
had this great honor and glory. He also 
built the royal palace which is mentioned 
in these few simple words: ‘And Hiram 
king of Tyre sent messengers to David, 
and cedar trees, and carpenters, and ma- 
sons : and they built David an house.’ It 
was a grand dwelling, worthy of the king 
of Israel, but he did not feel satisfied, for ‘it 
came to pass when the king sat in his house, 
and the Lord had given him rest round 
about from all his enemies, that the king 
said unto Nathan the prophet. See now, I 
dwell in a house of cedar, but the house of 
God dwelleth within curtains.’ ” 

“What does that mean. Miss Harson ?” 
asked Clara. 

“It means, dear, that the tabernacle, or 
house of worship, was only a handsome 
tent. It was David’s desire to build a mag- 


2o8 SUNDAY EVENINGS AT ELMRIDGE. 

nificent temple for the worship of God, but 
the Lord said to him, ‘ Whereas it was in 
thine heart to build an house unto my 
name, thou didst well that it was in thine 
heart,’ meaning that God would accept the 
will for the deed ; but his wish was not to 
be carried out, because, as Solomon after- 
ward told Hiram, ‘ thou knowest how 
that David my father could not build an 
house unto the name of the Lord his God, 
for the wars which were about him on 
every side.’ But God made David the 
promise, ‘ Thy son, whom I will set upon 
thy throne in thy room, he shall build an 
house unto my name.’ 

“ The magnificent temple which Solomon 
built has always been renowned throughout 
the world, and this was greatly due to 
David’s zeal for God’s glory. The king 
thought continually of the building which 
he was never to see, and he collected an 
immense amount of materials for it. Forty- 
eight thousand tons of gold and silver and 
great quantities of brass, iron, stone, tim- 
ber and other things were brought to Jeru- 
salem, and skillful workers of every kind 


THE YOUNG SHEPHERD. 


209 


were engaged. For David said, ‘ Solomon 
my son is young and tender, and the house 
that is to be builded for the Lord must be 
exceeding magnifical, of fame and of glory 
throughout all the countries: I will there- 
fore now make preparation for it.’ 

“ Many were the battles that David fought 
both at home and abroad, for the shepherd- 
boy had become a great warrior, and amid 
the temptations of power and luxury he 
sinned grievously against God. But he 
deeply repented of his sins and was se- 
verely punished for them. The conduct 
of his own children gave him great sorrow, 
and his son Absalom rebelled against him 
and tried to become king in his stead. 
When Absalom was killed, his father 
mourned for him as though he had been 
good and dutiful ; and all through his life 
this true king showed a most forgiving 
disposition toward his enemies. He was 
so often noble and generous that we can 
plainly see this was his natural character. 

“It pained David to have others suffer 
on his account. In one of his early ex- 
periences with the Philistines he was in 

14 


2 1 0 SUNDA Y E VENINGS A T ELM RID GE. 

the cave of Adullam near Bethlehem, and 
the Philistines had pitched their camp be- 
tween the Israelites and the town. David 
was seized with a great thirst, and he re- 
membered the cold water of his native 
place, which had refreshed him so in his shep- 
herd days, and it seemed to him then that 
there was none like it. ‘And David longed 
and said, Oh that one would give me drink 
of the water of the well of Bethlehem, which 
is by the gate !’ There were with David in 
the cave three mighty men who had done 
great deeds of valor ; and when they 
heard their beloved captain longing for a 
draught of the water of Bethlehem, they 
did not hesitate to risk their lives to grat- 
ify his desire. ‘ And the three mighty men 
broke through the host of the Philistines 
and drew water out of the well of Beth- 
lehem that was by the gate, and took it 
and brought it to David.’ 

“ It is one of the most beautiful incidents 
of David’s life that when this dearly-bought 
water was brought and presented to him 
in the cave by the brave men — who had 
apparently started at once, without saying 


THE YOUNG SHEPHERD. 21 I 

what they were going to do — ‘he would 
not drink thereof, but poured it out unto 
the Lord. And he said, Be it far from me, 
O Lord, that I should do this : is not this 
the blood of the men that went in jeop- 
ardy of their lives ? therefore he would 
not drink it.’ ” 

“ He was a grand old fellow,” said Mal- 
colm, rather irreverently. 

“David,” continued Miss Harson, “is 
spoken of as ‘the man after God’s own 
heart,’ for, although he sometimes fell into 
sin, he was remarkable for his devotion to 
God’s service, and he never committed the 
crime of worshiping idols, as so many other 
of the kings of Israel did. He was a good 
and wise king as well as a writer of holy 
and beautiful songs. He was a prophet, 
too, for he wrote much of the cominor Mes- 

Z:> 

siah, and, although he died more than a 
thousand years before Christ was born, he 
was his type or representative. The Saviour 
is called ‘the son of David’ because his 
earthly parentage is traced in a direct line 
from the great Israelite king. Many of 
the psalms that speak of the persecutions 


2 1 2 SUNDA Y E VENINGS A T ELMRIDGE. 

and sufferings of David in his earlier days 
also foretell those of Christ, but it is as a 
shepherd that the likeness is strongest: 


“ ‘ The lamb is in the fold, 

In perfect safety penned ; 

The lion once had hold, 

And thought to make an end ; 

But One came by with wounded side. 
And for the sheep the shepherd died.’ 


“As David was prepared to be ruler over 
many things by his faithfulness to the 
smaller duties of his shepherd-life among 
the Judean hills, so must we fight against 
our small temptations, that when we are 
tried we may receive a crown of life.” 


CHAPTER XII. 

THE LORD'S MESSENGER. 


there any more children in the 



l \ Bible, Miss Harson ?” asked Edith, 
anxiously, on the next Sunday evening. 
“ Clara said she couldn’t find any.” 

“ There are none in the Old Testament, 
dear,” replied her governess, “ but I think 
we can find some in the New Testament, 
in the very beginning of it.” 

“ Of course we can,” said Malcolm, as a 
sudden light broke upon him ; “ there are 
John the Baptist and our Saviour.” 

“ Oh yes !” exclaimed Clara, enthusiasti- 
cally ; “and it will be so beautiful to hear 
about them ! But we are going to be 
quiet now. Miss Harson.” 

“ Many centuries after the death of Abra- 
ham and Sarah a little child was born to an- 
other aged couple who had long ago given 
up all hope of having any children. In the 


213 


2 1 4 SUNDA Y E VENINGS A T ELM RIDGE. 

first chapter of Luke’s Gospel we read of 
the remarkable birth of John the Baptist. 
H is father was a priest named Zacharias, 
and his mother was ‘ one of the daughters 
of Aaron, and her name was Elisabeth.’ 
Of these excellent people it is said that 
‘ they were both righteous before God, 
walking in all the commandments and 
ordinances of the Lord blameless.’ But 
they had the great sorrow of being child- 
less, which was considered a peculiar mis- 
fortune among the Jews, and, like Abra- 
ham and Sarah, ‘ they both were now well 
stricken in years’ — an aged couple whom 
friends and neighbors doubtless pitied as 
having no child to minister to them and to 
close their eyes when they were dead. But 
they trusted in God to care for them, and 
murmured not that he had seen fit to give 
them no children. 

“ The grand temple built by King Solo- 
mon and considered the ornament of Jeru- 
salem was in its last days now ; the time 
was drawing near when it would be utter- 
ly destroyed, and the office of the Jewish 
priesthood was nearly at an end. But 


THE LORD'S MESSENGER. 21 5 

Zacharias knew nothing of this as he stood 
one Sabbath morning in the holy place to 
burn incense, ‘ according to the custom of 
the priest’s office,’ while the people were 
praying without, ‘and there appeared unto 
him an angel of the Lord, standing on the 
right side of the altar of incense.’ ” 

“Wasn’t the priest frightened?” asked 
Clara. 

“Yes. At the sight of this glorious 
being Zacharias is troubled and afraid, 
but the angel calls him by name, and says, 
‘ Fear not,’ and then he tells him of his joy- 
ful message. His prayer has been heard, 
and the lonely couple are to be blessed 
with a child already named by God. Joy 
and gladness would this much-wished-for 
child bring with him, and he would be 
good and holy from his very birth. ‘And 
many of the children of Israel shall he turn 
to the Lord their God. And he shall go 
before him in the spirit and power of Elias 
to turn the hearts of the fathers to the chil- 
dren, and the disobedient to the wisdom of 
the just ; to make ready a people prepared 
for the Lord.’ This was God’s messenger 


2 1 6 SC/NDA Y E VENINGS A T ELM RID GE. 

of the New Testament, who was to go 
before the Saviour and prepare the way 
for his coming as a herald announces the 
approach of a great personage. Zacha- 
rias could understand but little of this 
then : after his first surprise and fear he 
knew only that a child had been promised 
to him and his aged wife, and he wonder- 
ed if this strange news could possibly be 
true. He even ventured to ask a sign 
from the angel, saying, ‘Whereby shall I 
know this ? for I am an old man, and my 
wife well stricken in years.* 

“A sign was speedily given, but it was a 
punishment as well ; for the heavenly visi- 
tor answered, ‘ I am Gabriel, that stand in 
the presence of God ; and am sent to speak 
unto thee, and to show thee these glad tid- 
ings. And behold thou shalt be dumb, and 
not able to speak, until the day that these 
things shall be performed, because thou 
believest not my words, which shall be 
fulfilled in their season.’ ” 

“ Couldn’t he ever speak any more ?” 
asked Edith, pityingly. 

“ Not until his promised child was born,” 


THE LORD'S MESSENGER. 21 / 

replied her governess ; “ he was dumb for 
nearly a year because he had doubted the 
special message of God. 

“ Meanwhile, the people were wondering 
what had become of the priest, that he did 
not come out to them ; and when he at 
length appeared, he could not speak to 
them, ‘and they perceived that he had 
seen a vision in the temple ; for he beck- 
oned unto them and remained speechless.’ 

“Zacharias did not return home for sev- 
eral days, until ‘ the days of his ministration 
were accomplished,’ and he was to remain 
speechless until the promise was fulfilled. 
But great was the joyful expectation in the 
house where the two old people had lived 
so long alone, and the good Elisabeth re- 
joiced that she could no longer be pointed 
out as the woman who had no child. 

“ Six months after that wonderful vision 
in the temple the angel Gabriel was sent 
again to the earth with ‘glad tidings,’ but 
this time he went to a humble maiden living 
in the little town of Nazareth to tell her that 
she would be the mother of the Saviour. 

“ Mary is supposed to have been the 


2 1 8 SUNDA y E VENINGS A T ELM RIDGE. 

cousin of Elisabeth, and soon after hear- 
ing this heavenly message she went to the 
house of Zacharias and saluted Elisabeth, 
who blessed her as the mother of her Lord. 
The two pious women praised God for the 
wonders and mercies that he had showed 
them, and after a visit of three months 
Mary returned again to her own home. 

“ When a son was at length born to the 
aged Zacharias and Elisabeth, neighbors 
and cousins came in to rejoice with them, 
and at the circumcising of the child they 
were going to name him after his father, 
but, to their great surprise, the mother 
said, ‘No; he must be called John.’ 

“ It was an unheard-of thing among the 
Jews not to name a child after some of his 
relations, and none of the family of Zach- 
arias had ever been named John. They 
spoke by signs to the father — who was deaf 
as well as dumb — to see what he would have 
the boy called, ‘ and he asked for a writing- 
table and wrote, saying. His name is John.’ 
They were amazed at this, little dreaming 
that Zacharias was obevine a divine com- 
mand ; but no sooner had he written the 


THE LORD^S MESSENGER. 


219 


name than his speech was restored, ‘and he 
spake and praised God/ God’s promise 
had been fulfilled, and the child was given ; 
therefore the first utterances of Zacharias 
were words of thanksgiving.” 

“ How glad he must have been !” said 
Clara, very earnestly. 

“You wouldn’t like to be struck dumb, 
would you ?” asked her brother, mischiev- 
ously. 

“ I think she would bear it quite as well 
as some of the rest of us,” replied Miss 
Harson, with a smile, “ but it is a terrible 
affliction for any one — much too terrible 
to jest about. 

“Those who lived near the priest were 
frightened when they heard the whole 
story, and all through that region — ‘ the 
hill-country of Judea’ — the tidings were 
spread of Zacharias’s wonderful vision in 
the temple, how he was struck dumb, and 
how the child’s name was given by God — 
a name that none of the family had ever 
had before. ‘And all they that heard 
them laid them up in their hearts, saying. 
What manner of child shall this be ?’ ‘And 


220 SUNDAY EVENINGS AT ELMRIDGE. 

his father Zacharias was filled with the Holy 
Ghost and prophesied/ speaking of the com- 
ing of Christ; and then, in a burst of rapt- 
ure, turning to his infant son, he said, ‘And 
thou, child, shalt be called the prophet of the 
Highest, for thou shalt go before the face of 
the Lord to prepare his ways ; to give knowl- 
edge of salvation unto his people, by the 
remission of their sins, through the tender 
mercy of our God ; whereby the day-spring 
from on high hath visited us/ 

“We know very little of the childhood of 
John the Baptist after this. We are told in 
the Gospel that ‘ the hand of the Lord was 
with him,’ and that ‘ the child grew and 
waxed strong in spirit, and was in the 
deserts till the day of his showing unto 
Israel.’ 

“ In old pictures John is always repre- 
sented as one of the holy family — a chubby 
boy some years older than the infant Sa- 
viour, when he was really born only six 
months before him. He stands beside 
Jesus with the cross and the lamb, and 
often with his hands clasped in worship. 
It makes a pretty picture, but it cannot be 


THE LORD'S MESSENGER. 


221 


a faithful one, for there is no reason to sup- 
pose that the son of Zacharias was the com- 
panion of the child Jesus. Their homes 
were some distance apart, and they may 
not even have seen each other until the 
baptism of our Lord.” 

There were two or three such engrav- 
ings in the books on the table before Miss 
Harson, the beautiful little boy clasping 
his cross, the gentle-looking lamb beside 
him, and the holy Child lying on his moth- 
er’s lap. 

“ Why do they all have these rings round 
their heads, Miss Harson ?” asked Malcolm. 

“ That,” replied his governess, “ is the 
‘ nimbus,’ or glory, which in old pictures is 
always seen encircling the heads of holy 
persons, for it seemed impossible in those 
days to believe that those who lived so 
near to God, and especially God’s blessed 
Son, could appear without showing some 
sign of that wonderful light which is always 
associated with saints and their home in 
heaven. 

“John the Baptist, like Samson and 
Samuel, was brought up a Nazarite, the 


222 SUNDAY EVENINGS AT ELM RIDGE. 

angel Gabriel having commanded, before 
he was born, that he should drink neither 
wine nor strong drink, and the Gospel 
tells us that ‘ he did eat locusts and wild 
honey.’ ” 

“ How could he eat locusts ?” the children 
exclaimed. “ Ugh !” 

“This seems to us strange food,” con- 
tinued their governess, “ but in the East 
some kinds of locusts are eaten even now, 
and they are thought a great delicacy 
when properly cooked. In the Old Test- 
ament, too, where the Jews are told not 
to eat many things because they are un- 
clean, it is said, ‘ Even these of them ye 
may eat: the locusts after his kind, and the 
bald locust after his kind, and the beetle 
after his kind, and the grasshopper after 
his kind.’ ” 

Clara and Edith thought the beetles even 
worse than the locusts, and they became so 
excited over it that Miss Harson smilingly 
asked if she had better go on. The young 
auditors were very quiet again, and their 
governess said that she would now return 
to the locusts : 


THE LORD'S MESSENGER. 223 

“ These insects are used in many ways. 
Sometimes they are dried and pounded into 
meal, which is made into bread when food 
is scarce ; and the Bedouins pack them 
with salt in close masses, which they carry 
in their leather sacks and cut off slices as 
they need them. In the Arabian cities 
they are brought to market on strings, and 
they are often gathered by the sackful. 
The Arabs use them very much as they use 
dates, and any one who is hungry eats them 
from his hand. 

“ ‘ Wild honey ’ is often mentioned in the 
Bible, and it was very plentiful in all the 
land of Judea, which is called ‘ a land flow- 
ing with milk and honey.’ It was found in 
rocks and in hollow trees, and in some parts 
of the East there is a kind of tree that has 
on its leaves and twigs a sweet substance 
resembling honey, which is gathered and 
eaten by the Arabs. 

“ Many beautiful allusions are made in 
the Scriptures to honey and the honey- 
comb, and in the song of Moses he says, 
‘ He made him to suck honey out of the 
rock.’ In South Africa, it is said, bees de- 


224 SUNDAY EVDNINGS AT ELMRIDGE. 

posit their honey on the surface of the cliffs 
of rocks, and for its protection cover it with 
a dark-colored wax ; by the action of the 
weather this becomes hard and of the com- 
plexion of the rock. The traveler cuts 
through this wax covering, and, putting 
his mouth to the opening, sucks out as 
much honey as he wants. From early 
childhood John seems to have lived a very 
lonely and self-denying life, and it is prob- 
able that his parents both died not many 
years after he was born. ‘ He was in the 
desert,’ or the wilderness — meaning the 
unsettled portion of the country around 
the cities or the towns — because here he 
could better learn the great mission for 
which God had sent him into the world in 
the spirit and power of Elias.” 

“ Who was Elias, Miss Harson ?” asked 
Clara. 

“ He was the prophet Elijah of the Old 
Testament, who lived in the reign of wicked 
King Ahab. Do you not remember his be- 
ing fed by the ravens ?” 

“ Please tell us about it,” said Edie, 
coaxingly. 



ELIJAH FED BY RAVENS. 

Here he was to drink water from the 
brook, and God had commanded the 
ravens to feed him. 

“ Ravens are not at all pleasant birds, 


THE LORD'S MESSENGER. 225 

“ God sent him to Ahab to prophesy a 
three years’ drought in the land, and then 
he told him to turn eastward and hide him- 
self by the brook Cherith, before Jordan. 


15 


226 SUNDAY EVENINGS AT ELM RIDGE. 

nor do they bear a good' character. They 
are like the common crow in size, shape 
and color, and they were considered un- 
clean by the Jews. They will eat all sorts 
of disgusting things, and, being always 
hungry, they are much more likely to 
look out for food for themselves than to 
supply the wants of others. But Elijah 
went at once, as God commanded him. 
It was his part to go and dwell by the 
brook Cherith ; God had promised to see 
to the rest. ‘ And the ravens brought him 
bread and flesh in the morning, and bread 
and flesh in the evening; and he drank of 
the brook.’ 

“Another wonderful thing about Elijah is 
that he never died, but was taken up into 
heaven by a whirlwind in the presence of 
Elisha, his disciple and attendant, and fifty 
other persons. The royal chariot of the 
King of heaven was sent for him, but the 
Scripture only gives us the information that 
suddenly ‘ there appeared a chariot of fire 
and horses of fire and parted them both 
asunder; and Elijah went up by a whirl- 
wind into heaven.’ ” 


THE LORD^S MESSENGER. 


227 


“O — o — h !” exclaimed die children, won- 
deringly. 

“There had been no sound of die coming 
of the chariot, and the prophet and his dis- 



ELIJAH TAKEN TO HEAVEN. 

ciple were still talking when they were sep- 
arated by the fiery messenger, and a fierce 
wind swept up Elijah and the chariot, and 
he was seen no more. No one had seen 
the prophet die. He must be living some- 
where, for even Elisha, who was so near to 


228 SUNDAY EVENINGS AT ELMRIDGE. 

him, could only say that he had been taken 
up by the wind, and long after all those 
were dead who had lived when he did it 
was reported that he would return. The 
last prophet of the Old Testament, Malachi, 
had said, ‘ Behold, I will send you Elijah the 
prophet before the coming of the great and 
dreadful day of the Lord,’ and the Jews 
really expected to see him on earth again 
as he was before. 

“We know that once Elijah really did 
appear, just as he looked when he lived in 
the days of King Ahab, and three trembling 
Jews saw him and at once knew him. These 
were the apostles Peter, James and John, 
and Jesus had taken them up into ‘an high 
mountain apart’ for the purpose of prayer; 
‘and as he prayed, the fashion of his coun- 
tenance was altered, and his raiment was 
white and glistering. And behold there 
talked with him two men, which were 
Moses and Elias; who appeared in glory, 
and spake of his decease which he should 
accomplish at Jerusalem.’ ” 

“ How beautiful is the Bible !” said Mal- 
colm, unexpectedly. “ But there is very lit- 


THE LORD'S MESSENGER. 22g 

tie said there about all these wonderful 
things.” 

“ Yes,” was the reply; “God’s voice is 
‘ a still, small voice ’ even when speaking 
through his messengers, and heavenly mys- 
teries are not made common. When morn- 
ing comes, it does not come all at once, but 
first there are a few faint streaks of light in 
the east, and gradually the sun appears shin- 
inor in his strength. The Sun of riehteous- 
ness was now rising, and it is spoken by the 
prophets, ‘ Behold, I send my messenger 
before thy face, which shall prepare thy 
way before thee : the voice of one crying 
in the wilderness. Prepare ye the way of 
the Lord, make his paths straight.’ 

“ ‘ On Jordan’s bank the Baptist’s cry 
Announces that the Lord is nigh ; 

Awake and hearken, for he brings 
Glad tidings of the King of kings. 

“ ‘ Then cleansed be every breast from sin ; 

Make straight the way for God within ; 

Prepare us in our hearts a home 
Where such a mighty Guest may come.’ 

“ For thirty years had God’s messenger 
waited until he should be called to his 


230 SUNDAY EVENINGS AT ELMRIDGE. 

work, content with loneliness and with 
enough to satisfy his hunger, and perhaps 
knowing that he had only a short time 
in which to give his warning: 


“ * the Saviour comes — 

The Saviour promised long ; 
Let every heart prepare a throne, 
And every voice a song.’ 


Possibly, too, John may have known that 
his death would be that of a martyr. The 
messenger of the Old Testament was taken 
up to heaven in a chariot of fire, but the 
messenger of Christ must die, like his Mas- 
ter, by the hands of cruel men. 

“ Tn those days came John the Baptist 
preaching in the wilderness of Judea, and 
saying. Repent ye, for the kingdom of 
heaven is at hand. And the same John 
had his raiment of camel’s hair and a 
leathern girdle about his loins ; and his 
meat was locusts and wild honey ’ In the 
pictures we see of the prophet Elijah he 
is dressed very much in the same way 
and carries a staff in his hand. The older 
prophet often depended entirely upon God 


THE LORD'S MESSENGER. 23 I 

for his food, and the later one took only 
what God had provided for wanderers in 
the wilderness. Elijah preached repent- 
ance from idolatry, and John the Baptist 
preached repentance from other sins. 



JOHN THE BAPTIST PREACHING. 


“Multitudes flocked to the Jordan to hear 
what the hermit of the wilderness would 
have to say to them, and his message was 
the same to all — not only to repent of their 
sins and be baptized, but ‘to bring forth 
fruits meet for repentance,’ to live like 


232 SUNDAY EVENINGS AT ELMRIDGE. 

God’s children. To those who asked him 
what they should do he would only say, ‘ He 
that hath two coats, let him impart to him 
that hath none ; and he that hath meat, let 
him do likewise.’ The publicans asked 
him what they should do, and to them the 
preacher replied, ‘ Exact no more than 
that which is appointed you.’ Publicans 
were classed almost with thieves and pick- 
pockets by their Jewish brethren, from 
whom they collected the tribute paid to 
their Roman conquerors, seldom taking 
only their just dues, but exacting enough 
to pay themselves a handsome sum at the 
same time. The Jews despised them so 
much that they would not allow them to 
enter the temple nor the synagogues, and 
they reproached the Saviour with being 
‘a friend of publicans and sinners’ and 
eating with them. The soldiers were told 
to do violence to no man, neither to accuse 
any falsely, and to be content with their 
wages. The words of the preacher show 
what were the particular sins of this class 
of men, but neither to them nor to the 
publicans did John the Baptist say that 


THE I.ORD'S MESSENGER. 


233 


they must leave their occupation and do 
something else. He knew that there must 
be both publicans and soldiers, and that 
they could serve God as well in these 
occupations as in any other if they were 
willing to do what was right.” 

“ Doesn’t it matter, then, what people 
are. Miss Harson ?” asked Clara, in some 
perplexity — “I mean what kind of busi- 
ness they do ?” 

“ It matters, dear, when a business is 
absolutely wrong — something, for instance, 
that dishonors God and leads people into 
sin ; but a soldier or a tax-gatherer need 
not do either of these. So it is with 
many other occupations. 

“ There was a great awakening among 
the Jews at the preaching of this messen- 
ger of God, ‘and all men mused in their 
hearts of John, whether he were the Christ 
or not.’ They were looking for the Mes- 
siah : perhaps this was he, for he had ex- 
pressly said that he was not the prophet 
Elijah, or Elias, come to earth again. But 
he must proclaim the Saviour : it was the 
work that had been given him to do ; and 


234 SUNDAY EVENINGS A I' ELMRIDGE. 

now it was almost day. So he answered 
them, ‘There cometh One mightier than I 
after me, the latchet of whose shoes I am 
not worthy to stoop down and unloose. 
I indeed baptize you with water: but he 
shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost.’ 
When he really met the Saviour whom he 
preached, he cried joyfully, ‘ Behold the 
Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin 
of the world !’ and for this reason John 
the Baptist is represented in so many old 
pictures as a child with a lamb in his arms 
and a scroll with the Latin words ^Ecce 
Agnus Deu ” 

“ I know that,” said Malcolm, who was 
very proud of his Latin — “ ‘ Behold the 
Lamb of God ’ — but I always wondered 
what it meant.” 

“ I think you will remember it now,” re- 
plied his governess, “ and I should like to 
have you always think of it when you see 
this beautiful legend, or motto, on a 
church window.” 

“Are you not going to tell us more 
about John the Baptist, Miss Harson ?” 
asked Clara. 


THE LORD'S MESSENGER. 235 

“There is very little more to tell, dear, 
but about his death, and that is so very sad 
that I hesitated about it. But you will 
read it in the Gospel. 

“Among those who listened to the 
preacher of the wilderness was Herod, 
the wicked tetrarch, or governor, of Gal- 
ilee, and at first, ‘when he heard him, he 
did many things and heard him gladly.’ 
But the messenger of God reproved his 
sinfulness, as Elijah did that of Ahab, be- 
ing probably sent for to come to the pal- 
ace, where he talked again and again to 
the wicked king and his still more wicked 
wife. Herodias would have killed the 
holy man, because she ‘ had a quarrel 
against him ’ for his faithful preaching, but 
for some time she could not. At length, 
however, she persuaded Herod to put him 
in prison, that they might not hear his ac- 
cusing voice, and then she watched and 
waited for a chance to kill him. 

“A great feast was made in the palace 
on Herod’s birthday, and all ‘his lords, 
high captains and chief estates of Galilee’ 
were there. Herodias had trained her 


236 SUNDA Y E VENINGS A T ELM RID GE. 

young daughter to come in and dance 
before her uncle — for she was the child 
of Herod’s brother — to amuse him and his 
guests, and every one was so pleased with 
her graceful motions that ‘ the king said 
unto the damsel, Ask of me whatever thou 
wilt, and I will give it thee.’ Then, as their 
delight increased, Herod said with an oath, 
‘Whatsoever thou shalt ask of me, I will 
give it thee, unto the half of my kingdom.’ 

“ The wicked Herodias was full of tri- 
umph when her daughter came to tell her 
this and to ask her what gift she should 
claim from her uncle, and without a mo- 
ment’s hesitation she replied, ‘The head 
of John the Baptist.’ Now was the time 
for getting rid of the good man whom she 
hated, for Herod would not dare to break 
the oath he had taken before the company. 

“It was a dreadful and an unexpected 
thing for a young girl to ask, and the king 
did not wish to put the prophet, stern as he 
was, to death; but, although he was ‘ex- 
ceeding sorry,’ he thought more of his oath 
and of the presence of his court than of the 
life of the Baptist or the crime of murder; 



THE LORD'S MESSENGER. 237 

and he immediately ‘sent an executioner, 
and commanded his head to be brought : 
and he went and beheaded him in the 
prison ; and brought his head in a charger, 


BURIAL OF JOHN BAPTIST. 

and gave it to the damsel ; and the damsel 
gave it to her mother.’ ” 

“They ought to have been killed!’' said 
Malcolm, indignantly, and his sisters fairly 
shuddered with horror. 

“The preacher of truth was silenced, but 
his message had been delivered and the 


238 SUNDA V E VENINGS A T EL MR ID GE. 

end of his existence accomplished. He had 
pointed the people to Christ and prepared 
his way, and the angel of death, as a mes- 
senger of life, came to his prison and led 
him forth into the eternal city.” 


CHAPTER XIII. 

THE STAR OF BETHLEHEM. 

HE children were sitting in a state of 



JL hushed expectation while Miss Har- 
son arranged her books at the table ; Mal- 
colm had his little sister on his lap, and 
Clara was gazing thoughtfully into the fire. 
Christ’s messenger had come and gone, and 
the holy child Jesus would surely follow. 

“Almost every child,” began Miss Har- 
son, “ knows what Christmas means — that 
beautiful, happy, glowing season that 
sparkles like a star amid the snows of 
winter, when trees are laden with strange 
fruits that have grown there in a single 
night and are all gathered the next morn- 
ing, with its chimney-stockings fairly 
bursting with treasures, its evergreens 
and beautiful flowers in churches and 
homes, its gladness and good cheer, as 


240 SUNDAY EVENINGS AT ELMRIDGE. 


well for the lonely farmhouse as for the 
city mansion. This is the time, too, when 
portions are sent to those for whom noth- 
ing is provided — to the children in orphan 
asylums and in homes and in dismal alleys, 
and even to the penitentiary and the house 
of refuge. Of all festivals of the year, this 
is especially the children’s feast, because it 
is the birthday of Christ our Saviour, who 
was born, a little, helpless baby, into the 
world at this cold season, when the earth 
was bare and gloomy and there were 
neither birds nor flowers to welcome him : 

“ ‘ All in the time of winter, 

When the fields were white with snow, 

A Babe was born in Bethlehem 
A long, long time ago. 

Oh what a thing was that, good folks — 

That the Lord whom we do know 
Should have been a Babe for all our sakes, 

To take away our woe ! 

“ ‘ Not in a golden castle 

Was this sweet Baby born. 

But only in a stable. 

With cattle and with corn. 

But forth afield the angels 
Were singing in the air; 

And when the shepherds heard the news. 

To that Child they did repair.’ ” 


THE STAR OF BETHLEHEM, 


241 


“ Isn t that beautiful ?” exclaimed Clara, 
delighted, while the others chimed in with 
her. “And it isn’t exactly funny, but so 
— so — ” 

“‘Quaint’ is the word you want, dear,” 
replied her governess. “ These verses be- 
long to an old, old carol, and I knew that 
you would like to hear them. It is a very 
long carol, and it was sung hundreds of 
years ago, between midnight and morning, 
under the windows of great houses by vil- 
lage children. Sometimes this beautiful 
custom is followed now, but not often. 
Very sweet are the voices as they rise 
and fall on the cold winter air in the still- 
ness of night or in the early dawn ; and ‘ is 
it not beautiful,’ a writer says, ‘ that when 
the flowers of the wood and the field have 
done blossoming, when the trees are leaf- 
less and no birds make melody among the 
barren boughs, the whole world breaks out 
into singing over the cradle of its dearest 
Child ?’ 

“ Milton’s ‘ Hymn to the Nativity,’ the 
most beautiful of all the many Christmas 
songs, says, 

16 


242 SUNDAY EVENINGS AT ELMRIDGE, 


“ ‘ It was the winter wild 

While the heaven-born Child, 

All meanly wrapped, in the rude manger lies 


and there are many pictures which repre- 
sent the holy Infant lying in his manger-bed 
with the bright stars shining down upon 
him. There are many, too, which represent 
him surrounded by a glory of light, so that 
those who come to look for him have to 
shade their eyes from the blaze ; but this 
is not according to the word of God, which 
tells us that the Saviour did not come in 
glory, but as the child of poor and humble 
parents. 

“We will see what the. book which is all 
truth tells us of this holy childhood. 

“ David, ‘ the Lord’s anointed,’ had been 
dead nearly a thousand years when the first 
Christmas dawned upon the earth. This 
was the birth of the Messiah, the true 
Anointed, who was called ‘ Jesus Christ,’ or 
‘ Saviour.’ David had written much of him 
in the Psalms, and the very place of his 
birth was foretold by the prophet Micah: 
‘ But thou, Bethlehem Ephratah, though 
thou be little among the thousands of Ju- 


THE STAR OF BETHLEHEM. 243 

dah, yet out of thee sh^ll He come forth 
unto me that is to be Ruler in Israel, whose 
goings forth have been from of old, from 
everlasting.’ 

“ Christ was not to be an earthly ruler 
and he was not born to earthly greatness, 
but among the poor and lowly, and every- 
thing around him was of the humblest and 
plainest. His birth, indeed, was announced 
by a vision of angels, but only the shep- 
herds who were watchinor their flocks 

o 

through the chilly night — as David so 
often watched his, for fear of the lions 
and the bears, and perhaps human rob- 
bers — heard the angels’ song or saw the 
radiant vision.” 

“I wonder why every one didn’t?” said 
Malcolm ; “ for God wanted every one to 
know about the Saviour.” 

“But he also wished people to believe- 
on him, dear — not because every one had 
seen and heard the angels, but "because all 
felt in their hearts that this was truly the 
Son of God. Our heavenly Father has 
different ways now of bringing his children 


* Mic. V. 2. 


244 SUNDAY EVENINGS AT ELMRIDGE. 

to Christ, just as he had then, and you will 
remember that there were very few, even 
in those times, when there was no word to 
guide them, to whom God sent a vision or 
a voice. 

“ On that first Christmas Eve, nearly 
nineteen hundred years ago, Joseph, the 
village carpenter of Nazareth, and Mary 
his wife had gone to ‘ the city of David, 
which is called Bethlehem,’ to be taxed, 
because they were of the house and lineage 
of David. The Roman emperor who now 
ruled over the Jews had decreed that all 
the world should be taxed, ‘ and all went to 
be taxed, every one into his own city.’ 
Joseph’s city, because of his descent from 
David, was Bethlehem — a very small city 
indeed, built on a gray rock. On the 
top of this rock stood the village inn, or 
‘khan,’ as it is called in the East. The 
khan is always a low building of rough 
stones and only one story high. There is 
a square place enclosed, where the cattle 
are kept safely through the night, and a 
sort of recess for travelers, the floor of 
which is raised a foot or two above the 


THE STAR OF BETHLEHEM. 245 

courtyard where the cattle are. A large 
khan would have a number of such re- 
cesses, which are really small rooms with 
no front wall to them, and no door or win- 



BETHLEHEM. 

dow. Everything that is done in them can 
be seen by every one outside.” 

“ But how can people stay in such 
places?” asked Clara. 

“The people who do stay in them,” was 
the reply, “ usually stop only for a night. 


246 SUNDAY EVENINGS AT ELMRIDGE. 

and, not having seen anything better, they 
do not know how comfortless they are. 
These strange hotels have no furniture; 
only bare walls and floors are to be seen, 
and the traveler generally brings his own 
carpet and uses it for a variety of purposes. 
Besides covering the floor with it, he sits 
cross-legged upon it for his meals, and 
makes a bed of it at night. He has to 
bring his food with him, too, and there is 
no one but himself to attend to his cattle 
and from a neighboring spring to draw the 
water he requires. He has to wait upon 
himself in every way, and he is, of course, 
expected to pay very little merely for a place 
of shelter and a floor to lie on. But, poor as 
these Syrian hotds are, they are apt to 
be full, especially at seasons when there 
is a great deal of traveling ; and if a trav- 
eler is late and finds the three-walled rooms 
all occupied, he has to go to the lower part 
of the building and take his place among 
the horses, mules and camels. Sometimes 
this part of the khan is a cave, and there 
are many such places in the hilly region 
of Palestine. The khan at Bethlehem had 


THE STAR OF BETHLEHEM. 247 

such a cave, in which the cattle were lodged, 
and over this cave, where Christ is sup- 
posed to have been born, a church called 
the church of the Nativity has been built. 
A silver star in the floor marks the spot 
where the manger is thought to have been, 
and so many pilgrims — who have been 
going there for hundreds of years — have 
stooped and kissed the star that it is quite 
worn.*’ 

“Fd love to kiss it,” exclaimed Edith; “I 
wish that I could.” 

“The feeling is a very natural one, dear,” 
said Miss Harson, “ and I am sure that we 
might all wish to do so if we had the oppor- 
tunity ; but our blessed Saviour has said, 
‘ If ye love me, keep my commandments,’ 
and this brings us much nearer to him than 
all the homage we can pay to the place of 
his nativity. 

“ Traveling in the East is even now very 
slow work, and it took our Lord’s earthly 
parents a long time to get from Nazareth 
to Bethlehem. It was a tiresome up-hill 
journey ; and when they finally reached 
the khan, they found all the rooms occu- 


248 SUNDAY EVENINGS AT ELM RIDGE. 

pied. So many strangers, like themselves, 
had come to be taxed that ‘ there was 
no room for them in the inn.’ Like other 
belated travelers, Joseph and Mary were 
obliged to turn to the place where the cat- 
tle were tied for the night and seek a spot 
where they might rest their weary limbs 
among the beasts of burden, and here, in 
the chilly winter night, amid the hay and 
the straw spread for the cattle, Christ, the 
true King of the Jews and the Saviour of 
the world, was born. 

“ Standing proudly on a hill and so lifted 
up that it could be seen for a great dis- 
tance was the grand palace of King Herod, 
not many miles from humble Bethlehem. 
Travelers from Nazareth to Bethlehem 
would pass in full sight of it and near 
enough to hear the music and the feasting 
that were always going on there ; and per- 
haps the two who were on their way to the 
scant comforts of the village inn, not then 
knowing that no place would be found for 
them except in the stable, may have thought 
longingly of the luxurious rest for those 
who were within those strong walls. 


THE STAR OF BETHLEHEM. 249 

“ This Herod was distinguished for his 
savage cruelty and wickedness. He was 
called king, but in reality he was only gov- 
ernor of the Roman province of Judea, be- 
cause he was under the Roman emperor. 
He was very jealous of his authority, be- 
cause he knew that he had no real right 
there, and his days and his nights were 
spent in noisy feasting, to drown all 
thoughts of his many sins.” 

“Was he the wicked king who killed all 
the little children ?” asked Malcolm. 

“ The very same,” replied his governess. 
“ And while this false king was feasting in 
the palace the real King of the Jews and 
Lord of the universe came that night to a 
stable, and was born more humbly than the 
meanest slave, ‘ to show that the souls of 
the lowest and poorest are as precious in 
God’s sight as the soul of the greatest mon- 
arch.’ The poorest would feel themselves 
degraded by so humble a birthplace as this 
— in the midst of dumb cattle and laid in a 
mano^er instead of in a cradle. There was 
such an entire absence of all earthly com- 
fort that loving hearts have imagined the 


250 SUNDA Y E VENINGS A T EL MR ID GE. 

infant Saviour surrounded by heavenly 
splendor, and one of the old-time beliefs 
was the worship paid him by the animals, 



STAR OF BETHLEHEM. 

who were thought to have been inspired 
by God at once to recognize his divinity. 
There are places in which it is still believed 
that all cattle turn their faces to the East 


THE STAR OF BETHLEHEM. 25 I 

at midnight on Christmas Eve, thus paying 
mute reverence to the Babe of Bethlehem.” 

“ Oh, Miss Harson !” exclaimed the chil- 
dren, excitedly. “ Did they ever do that ?” 

“ There is no reason to suppose that they 
did,” replied their governess, “and yet we 
read of an ass speaking on one occasion.” 

“Yes,” said Malcolm, promptly, “that 
was Balaam’s ass ; and if parrots and 
other birds can talk, I don’t see why ani- 
mals can’t, when they’re so much bigger.” 

“ It does not depend altogether upon size, 
Malcolm, and we only know that in God’s 
wise economy he has not seen fit to make 
animals talk. A dog, however, will almost 
do this, and he certainly seems to under- 
stand what is said to him. But we will 
leave the animals until another time. 

“The heavenly splendor appeared only 
in the distant field where some poor men 
were watching their sheep, and it is writ- 
ten in the beautiful Christmas hymn. 


“ < While shepherds watched their flocks by night, 
All seated on the ground, 

The angel of the Lord came down, 

And glory shone around.’ 


252 SUNDA Y E VENINGS A T ELMRIDGE. 

“ Here is the simple Bible story of this 
wondrous vision : ‘And there were in the 
same country shepherds abiding in the 
field, keeping watch over their flock by 
night. And lo, the angel of the Lord 
came upon them, and the glory of the 
Lord shone round about them, and they 
were sore afraid. And the angel said unto 
them. Fear not: for behold I bring you 
good tidings of great joy, which shall be to 
all people, for unto you is born this day, in 
the city of David, a Saviour, which is Christ 
the Lord. And this shall be a sign unto 
you : ye shall find the babe wrapped in 
swaddling-clothes lying in a manger. And 
suddenly there was with the angel a multi- 
tude of the heavenly host praising God and 
saying. Glory to God in the highest, and on 
earth peace, good-will toward men.’ 

“ In some pictures of this wonderful vis- 
ion of the shepherds they are lying on the 
ground and shading their eyes from the 
dazzling light that slants down upon them 
from an immense star larger than any that 
was ever seen before, while in these rays of 
light stands the beautiful figure of the angel, 


THE STAR OF BETHLEHEM. 


253 


who is calminor their fears and tellinor them 

o o 

the wondrous news. The sheep are there, 
undisturbed in their rest, for they probably 
see and hear none of these things, and the 



THE INFANT JESUS. 


shepherds’ crooks, or staffs, are lying beside 
them. 

“ ‘And it came to pass, as the angels were 
gone away from them into heaven, the shep- 
herds said one to another. Let us now go 
even unto Bethlehem, and see this thing 


254 SUNDAY EVENINGS AT ELMRIDGE. 

which is come to pass, which the Lord hath 
made known unto us. And they came 
with haste, and found Joseph and Mary, 
and the babe lying in a manger.’ 


“ ‘ Cold on his cradle the dewdrops are shining, 

Low lies his head with the beasts of the stall ; 
Angels adore him, in slumber reclining. 

Maker and Monarch and Saviour of all.’ 


“The shepherds saw only this stable- 
home and lying asleep in that rude cradle 
a lovely child in all respects like other very 
young children. In old pictures the whole 
place is illuminated with the rays of light 
that circle round the head of the infant, while 
all who come to gaze upon him are forced 
to shade their eyes from the dazzling splen- 
dor. But the Bible, which tells us of the 
vision of angels and of the star that went 
before the shepherds till it came and stood 
over where the young Child was, does not 
say that they saw any other glory. 

“The plain truthfulness of the Gospel 
story makes the infant King the very op- 
posite of Herod in every respect, for Herod 
was a usurper and a descendant of Ishmael 


THE STAR OF BETHLEHEM. 255 

and Esau, while Jesus, of the house and lin- 
eage of David, was directly descended from 
Jacob and Isaac, as God had solemnly prom- 
ised them ; Herod was old in years and in 
wickedness, while Jesus was in the first 
bloom and innocence of infancy ; Herod 
was ‘ clothed in purple and fine linen, and 
fared sumptuously every day,’ while Jesus 
was wrapped in the plainest swaddling- 
clothes and had not where to lay his head 
except in a manger. 

“ The poor hardworking men who were 
the first to visit the infant Saviour, having 
gazed upon the strange sight of a fair 
human child cradled among the cattle, and 
believing the words of the angel, that this 
helpless infant was really the promised 
Saviour, ‘which is Christ the Lord,’ went 
their way, and ‘ made known abroad the 
saying which was told them concerning 
this child.’ ‘And the shepherds returned 
glorifying and praising God for all the 
things that they had heard and seen, as it 
was told unto them.’ Perhaps, when they 
were lying down again among their sheep, 
in the night-watches, they looked for an- 


256 SUNDAY EVENINGS AT ELMRIDGE. 

Other angel-vision ; perhaps, as they fixed 
their eyes on some large planet — and the 
stars in those Eastern skies all look so 
much larger and nearer than they do to 
us — they imagined that it increased in size, 
and expected to see the glory of the Lord 
shining round them again. Perhaps, too, 
they may have been told of the Good Shep- 
herd ‘ who giveth his life for the sheep ’ — 
the Shepherd who ‘calleth his own sheep 
by name,’ as they did ; for it is said that 
the shepherds of Judea gave each lamb a 
distinct name, and that the lambs all knew 
their names and came to the shepherd as 
soon as they were called by him. ‘And a 
stranger,’ says our Saviour, ‘ will they not 
follow, but will flee from him ; for they 
know not the voice of strangers.’ 

“You know,” continued Miss Harson, 
“that in our beautiful picture of the Good 
Shepherd he is carrying a lamb in his arms, 
and in those Eastern countries it is common 
to see shepherds carrying in their bosoms 
the little lambs that are too feeble to walk. 
There are sometimes so many of these, 
which have been born at a distance from 


THE STAR OF BETHLEHEM. 257 

the fold, that the shepherd has his arms 
full of them before night. 

‘‘We are told nothing more of these par- 
ticular shepherds, but they were probably 
good men to whom the first sight of the 
infant Saviour was given, and after that 
they were the first missionaries of Christ, 
for they ‘made known abroad the saying 
which was told them concerning . this 
child.’ ” 

“Isn’t there any more about the dear 
little baby in the manger ? ” asked Edith, 
in a disappointed tone. 

“ I am afraid not, dear ; after the beauti- 
ful story of bur Saviour’s birth we find very 
little about his infancy in all the four Gos- 
pels. We read of his circumcision, his 
presentation in the temple, the visit of the 
magi and the flight into Egypt, and, while 
we try to make the most of these short 
accounts and long to know how every day 
of that blessed life was spent, we must be 
satisfied with the knowledge that enough 
has been given to teach us all that we 
need to learn. 

“When the infant Jesus was eight days 

17 


258 SUNDA Y E VENINGS AT EL MR ID GE. 

old, he was circumcised, according to the 
custom of the Jews from the time of Abra- 
ham, and the name which the angel had 
commanded was given to him. This angel 
of the Lord had appeared unto Joseph in a 
dream before the child was born, and said, 
‘Thou shalt call his name Jesus, for he shall 
save his people from their sins.’ 

“The name ‘Jesus’ means ‘saviour,’ 
‘ sent to save,’ and ‘ Joshua,’ in the Old 
Testament, has the same meaning. This 
has always been a very common name 
among the Jews, and to distinguish the 
Redeemer’s name from others he was 
called ‘Jesus the Christ,’ or ‘anointed,’ 
and more commonly ‘ Jesus Christ.’ It is 
by the name ‘Christ’ alone that our Saviour 
is most frequently mentioned, next fre- 
quently as ‘Jesus Christ’ or ‘Christ Jesus,’ 
and sometimes as ‘the Lord Jesus Christ.’ 
It had been foretold by the prophet Isaiah, 
‘They shall call his name Emmanuel, wdiich 
being interpreted is, God with us;’ and this 
name alone shows us that Christ is God. 
But it is not so often used as any of the 
others, and ‘Our Saviour’ is the name 


THE STAR OF BETHLEHEM. 259 

which we like best of all, for it reminds 
us that ‘Jesus Christ came into the world 
to save sinners.’ 

“In the second chapter of Matthew’s 
Gospel there is an account of the visit of 
the magi, or wise men, to the infant Sa- 
viour; and these are said to have come 
from the East to Jerusalem, saying to King 
Herod, ‘Where is he that is bom King of 
the Jews? for we have seen his star in the 
East, and are come to worship him.’ This 
was alarming news to Herod, who knew 
that the Jews hated him both for his wicked- 
ness and because he was a foreigner who 
had no right to rule over them, and who 
was kept on his throne only by the power 
of the Roman emperor. He therefore 
feared and hated as a dangerous rival one 
who was born king of the Jews, and re- 
solved to get rid of him at once. 

“ When the wicked king had heard the 
strange story of these Eastern travelers, 
he was ‘ troubled and all Jerusalem with 
him ;’ for the Jews were looking for the 
Messiah, or ‘Anointed,’ who was to come 
as a powerful monarch, and all over the 


26 o sunda y e venings a t elm ridge. 

East at this time it was believed that a 
mighty king would soon arise in Judea 
and gain dominion over the whole world. 
In those times there were men, called as- 
trologers, who very carefully studied the 
appearance of the sky and thought that 
they could foretell great events by the 
movements of the stars. Any strange ap- 
pearance in the heavens or a new star was 
said to be the sign of a coming king ; and 
when this beautiful planet, or meteor — so 
much larger and brighter than any they 
had ever seen — appeared to the magi, they 
set forth at once upon the journey to Jeru- 
salem in order that they might there pay 
reverence to a powerful king. 

“ Many stories have been told of these 
wise men in the vain attempt to find out 
more than the Bible tells us of them. ‘ Magi ’ 
means ‘ scholars,’ ‘ astrologers ’ or ‘ sooth- 
sayers,’ but those who came to see the child 
Jesus are usually spoken of as kings, be- 
cause the prophet Isaiah says, ‘ And the 
Gentiles shall come to thy light, and kings 
to the brightness of thy rising.’ In the 
beautiful Epiphany carol, too, it is sung, 


THE STAR OF BETHLEHEM. 


261 



the: magi and the child jesus. 

“ ‘ We three kings of Orient are, 
Bearing gifts, we travel afar.’ ” 


At Miss Harson's request the children 
sang- the joyous carol all through, and Mai- 


262 SUNDAY EVENINGS AT ELMRIDGE. 

colm did his part with great heartiness, 
while the flute-like tones of the others 
gave a peculiar sweetness to the singing. 

“ These ‘ three kings of Orient,’ ” con- 
tinued the young lady, “are supposed to 
have been Arabians, because Arabia is 
east of Jerusalem and the people of that 
country were famous astrologers, or star- 
prophets. Myrrh and frankincense also 
come from Arabia, and David, in the sev- 
enty-second psalm, says, ‘The kings of 
Tarshish and of the isles shall bring pres- 
ents ; the kings of Sheba and Seba shall 
offer gifts.’ Many think they were Persian. 

“ Some of the legends say that there 
were twelve of these magi, but it is gen- 
erally said that there were only three — 
perhaps because their gifts were three 
in number. Even their names and their 
looks have been imagined. The oldest 
was said to be called Melchior, and he was 
an old man with white hair and long beard ; 
Balthasar had a dark skin and was in the 
prime of life; while Caspar was a ruddy 
and beardless youth, like David when he 
slew the Philistine giant. Melchior was 


THE STAR OF BETHLEHEM. 263 

supposed to be descended from Shem, 
Caspar from Ham and Balthasar from 
Japheth, and thus they represented three 
divisions of the globe, as well as three 
different periods of life.” 

“ I wish it was true,” said Malcolm, great- 
ly interested in this description ; “ it would 
be so much nicer to know about ’em.” 

“ Perhaps it is true,” replied Clara, very 
sagely. “ People must have seen ’em when 
they were traveling about, and they told 
other people about ’em. — This wouldn’t 
be wicked, would it. Miss Harson ?” 

“ Certainly not, dear,” replied her gov- 
erness, with a smile, “and you may be 
quite right about it. But we do not even 
know how the holy Child looked, and God 
seems to have kept these things from us 
for a purpose. 

“Great honor has always been paid to 
the three kings, as they were called, and 
three skulls said to be theirs, each skull 
crowned with a diadem of gold and jewels, 
are still to be seen, among many other 
stranee things exhibited as ‘relics,’ in the 
cathedral at Cologne.” 


264 SUNDAY EVENINGS AT ELMRIDGE. 

“ Fd just like to know,” cried Malcolm, 
“ how they ever got there. Why, Cologne 
isn’t anywhere near Arabia on the map !” 

“ It will never do to inquire too closely 
into such matters,” was the laughing reply, 
“for ‘relics’ are things that pay very little 
attention to such trifles as time and space. 
The skulls are really there, but whose 
skulls we cannot undertake to say. 

“ Herod seems to have treated his digni- 
fied visitors with respect, and to have lis- 
tened to their story without letting them 
suspect how much he was disturbed by it. 
But he immediately assembled the Jewish 
wise men — who were the chief priests and 
scribes — and ordered them to tell where 
this Christ of whom he had heard that their 
people talked was expected to be born. 
‘And they said unto him. In Bethlehem of 
Judea ; for thus it is written by the prophet, 
And thou, Bethlehem, in the land of Juda, 
art not the least among the princes of Juda; 
for out of thee shall come a Governor, that 
shall rule my people Israel.’ Having found 
out what he wanted from the Jews, Herod 
privately invited the magi into his presence 


THE STAR OF BETHLEHEM. 265 

again, and inquired as to the exact time 
when this wonderful star had appeared to 
them. In order to deceive his visitors, he 
told them where the Jews had said their 
King was to be born, and then sent them at 
once to Bethlehem with the false words, 
‘ Go and search diligently for the young 
child ; and when ye have found him, bring 
me word again, that I may come and wor- 
ship him also.' The truth would have been, 
‘ that 1 may send and kill him,' for this is 
what Herod meant to do, that he might not 
be in danger of losing his grand palace and 
all the luxury he enjoyed as Roman gov- 
ernor." 

“ He was a bad, wicked man," exclaimed 
Edith. 

“Yes, dear, he was all that; and he was 
a miserable, unhappy man, in spite of his 
gold and his gems. The wise men were 
glad to be directed to the object of their 
journey, and, carrying with them abundant 
offerings for this unknown Monarch, they 
at once departed to seek him. ‘ And lo, 
the star which they saw in the east, went 
before them, till it came and stood over 


266 SUNDAY EVENINGS AT ELMRIDGE. 

where the young child was. When they 
saw the star, they rejoiced with exceeding 
great joy.’ 

Brightest and best of the sons of the morning, 

Dawn on our darkness and lend us thine aid ; 

Star of the East, the horizon adorning. 

Guide where our infant Redeemer is laid.’ 

The Gospel then tells us that they came 
‘ into the house so that the holy family 
were no longer in the stable where Jesus 
was born, and it is supposed that many of 
the travelers who filled the khan on that 
first Christmas Eve had now gone on their 
way, while those for whom there was no 
room in the inn had found a more com- 
fortable resting-place than the cattle-en- 
closure. 

“ When the humble-hearted maori ‘ saw 

O 

the young child with Mary his mother, they 
fell down and worshiped him ; and when 
they had opened their treasures, they pre- 
sented unto him gifts : gold, and frankin- 
cense, and myrrh.’ They had journeyed 
to the insignificant little town of Bethlehem 
to pay the lowly-born Child, in his poor 
home, a reverence which they had not 


THE STAR OF BETHLEHEM. 267 

paid to the usurping Herod in his grand 
palace. 

“ It was the Eastern custom to approach 
great personages with gifts, and we often 
read of this in the Old Testament ; but the 
gifts which the wise men brought to the 
infant Saviour, some think, had a peculiar 
significance or meaning : myrrh for the hu- 
man nature, gold to the King, frankincense 
to the Divinity.” 

“What is myrrh, Miss Harson ?” asked 
Clara. 

“ It is the gum of a thorny tree which is 
found in Arabia and supposed to be the 
same as the burning bush from which God 
first spoke to Moses. It was used as an 
agreeable perfume, and was among the 
valuable gifts which it was customary to 
present to kings, nobles, and other exalted 
persons, as a token of respect. Frankin- 
cense is a gum from another Arabian tree, 
and it has a bitter, disagreeable taste, but 
a very sweet and powerful odor. It is 
called ‘frank’ because it burns so freely 
and so readily gives forth its delicious fra- 
grance, and ‘ incense ’ was used in the Jew- 


268 SUNDAY EVENINGS AT ELMRIDGE. 

ish worship, and the offering of it is the 
burning of sweet odors in a sacred place. 
Frankincense was frequently employed for 
the purpose. The best use that can be 
made of gold is to offer it to God, as all 
we can do even now, though not as the 
wise men did. But there are gifts more 
precious still in God’s sight — gifts which 
the poor as well as the rich can make : 

“ ‘ Say, shall we yield him, in cosily devotion, 

Odors of Edom and offerings divine, 

Gems of the mountain and pearls of the ocean. 

Myrrh from the forest and gold from the mine ? 

“ ‘ Vainly we offer each ample oblation. 

Vainly with gifts would his favor secure : 

Richer by far is the heart’s adoration. 

Dearer to God are the prayers of the poor.’ 

“ When the magi had paid their -worship 
to the young King and offered their gifts, 
they departed to return again to Jerusalem 
and make their promised report to Herod. 
But God warned them in a dream not to re- 
turn to Herod, and they went back to their 
own country by another way, without pass- 
ing through Jerusalem. 

“ This appearance of the star to the wise 


THE STAR OF BETHLEHEM. 


269 


men and their visit to the infant Saviour is 
called the ‘ Epiphany/ or manifestation to 
the Gentiles, meaning that Christ was 
shown to those who were not Jews. 
Many Christians for hundreds of years 
have kept the day as a holy day to thank 
God for the leading of the star which 
brought these Gentiles, and through them 
so many others, to the feet of Jesus. 

“ ‘ As with gladness men of old 
Did the guiding star behold. 

As with joy they hailed its light, 

Leading onward, beaming bright, 

So, most gracious Lord, may we 
Evermore be led to thee ! 

“ ‘ As with joyful steps they sped 
To that lowly manger-bed. 

There to bend the knee before 
Him whom heaven and earth adore. 

So may we with willing feet 
Ever seek the mercy-seat ! 

“ ‘ As they offered gifts most rare 
At that manger rude and bare, 

So may we with holy joy. 

Pure and free from sin’s alloy. 

All our costliest treasures bring, 

Christ, to thee, our heavenly King !’ 


“Herod watched for the magi to return 


2/0 SUNDAY EVENINGS AT ELMRIDGE. 

to him with their account of the infant 
King, but he watched in vain, for they 
never came. 

“When the holy Child was forty days 
old, Joseph and his mother took him to 
Jerusalem for a second Jewish ceremony, 
called the presentation in the temple, ac- 
cording to the law which God gave to 
Moses, by which ever)^ first-born son was 
to be presented to the Lord. He was then 
taken from his parents to be employed in 
the service of the temple, as Samuel was, 
unless they preferred to redeem him by 
paying a small sum of money. This must 
have been done by our Saviour’s parents, 
as he was not given up for the temple-service. 
At the same time the mother was to make 
an offering for herself, and those who were 
too poor to buy a lamb were allowed to 
bring two turtle-doves or two young pigeons 
‘ to offer a sacrifice according to that which 
is said in the law of the Lord.’ This poor 
offering was made by the mother of Jesus, 
but she had another offering which in God’s 
sight is beyond all burnt offering and sacri- 
fice — that of a meek and quiet spirit, for 


THE STAR OF BETHLEHEM. 2/1 

Mary was ‘ the handmaid of the Lord ’ and 
in all things obedient to his holy will. 


“ ‘ Behold a humble train 

The courts of God draw near : 

A virgin mother and her babe 
Before the Lord appear. 

“ ‘ Oh, wondrous, blessed sight 

To faithful eyes made known ! 

That lowly Babe the mighty God, 

The Prince of peace, they own. 

“ ‘ And now this temple shines 
With glory, far more bright 

Than e’er the former temple saw 
E’en at its greatest height. 

“ ‘ The cloud indeed was there. 

The symbol of the Lord ; 

But here the Lord himself appears. 

The true, incarnate Word. 

“ ‘ Blest Saviour, come once more 
With power and grace divine; 

Our hearts thy living temples make, 

Wholly and ever thine.’ 

“A good and pious man named Simeon 
was living in the city of Jerusalem, where 
Jesus was taken by his parents to be pre- 
sented in the temple, ‘ and the same was 
just and devout, waiting for the Consola- 


272 SUNDAY EVENINGS AT ELMRIDGE. 

tion of Israel ; and the Holy Ghost was 
upon him ’ — the Consolation of Israel was 
the Saviour — ‘and it was revealed unto 
him by the Holy Ghost that he should not 
see death before he had seen the Lord’s 
Christ.’ This holy man was divinely in- 
spired to go to the temple when the child 
Jesus had been taken there ‘ to do for him 
after the manner of the law.’ One of the 
old legends says that Simeon at once rec- 
ognized the holy Child by seeing him 
shining like a pillar of light in his mother’s 
arms, and that for this reason he uttered 
the words, ‘A light to lighten the Gentiles, 
and the glory of thy people Israel.’ ” 

“ Oh,” exclaimed the children, “ how beau- 
tiful that was ! But it doesn’t really say so 
in the Bible, does it, Miss Harson ?” 

“ No,” replied their governess ; “ there is 
no such description to be found in the holy 
book, and yet I love to think that it may have 
been so. The second of February — which 
is just forty days from Christmas — was in 
old times called Candlemas Day from the 
custom of processions around the churches 
with lighted candles to illustrate this legend, 


THE STAR OF BETHLEHEM. 2/3 

as well as the words of Christ himself : ‘ I 
am the Light of the world.’ 

“ But the plain Gospel account of Simeon 
and his words is far more beautiful and 
touching than any legend : ‘ Then took he 
him up in his arms, and blessed God, and 
said. Lord, now lettest thou thy servant de- 
part in peace according to thy word ; for 
mine eyes have seen thy salvation, which 
thou hast prepared before the face of all 
people ; a light to lighten the Gentiles, and 
the glory of thy people Israel.’ 

“ Mary and Joseph did not understand 
that this wonderful Child was really the 
expected Messiah, for they ‘ marveled at 
those things which were spoken of him.’ 
For this reason the holy Simeon, after 
blessing them, said unto the mother of 
Jesus, ‘ Behold, this child is set for the fall 
and rising again of many in Israel ; and for 
a sign which shall be spoken against (yea, 
a sword shall pierce through thy own soul 
also) ; that the thoughts of many hearts may 
be revealed.’ This was a prophecy uttered 
by Simeon, through the power of the Holy 
Ghost, of Christ’s office and sufferings, and 


18 


2/4 SUNDAY EVENINGS AT ELMRIDGE. 

of the pain that would strike through his 
mother’s heart at his agonizing death upon 
the cross. We know that this was indeed 
the Saviour, but except very dimly none 
knew it then. 

“ A prophetess, too, named Anna, a very 
old woman who spent all her time in God’s 
temple and ‘ served God with fastings and 
prayers night and day,’ appeared while the 
holy Child was still in Simeon’s arms, and, 
her eyes also being opened by the power 
of the Holy Spirit, she saw the Light of the 
world, and ‘gave thanks likewise unto the 
Lord ’ for his priceless gift. 

“ This aged servant of God ‘ spoke of 
him to all them that looked for redemption 
in Jerusalem,’ for the Jews were then ex- 
pecting the promised Messiah ; but they 
were sure that One so mighty would come 
with all the pomp and glory of an earthly 
king, and they refused to see him in this 
lowly-born infant whose poor young moth- 
er had just made the humble offering of two 
turtle-doves, and whose supposed father was 
a carpenter. ‘ He was in the world, and 
the world was made by him, and the world 


THE STAR OF BETHLEHEM. 275 

knew him not. He came unto his own, and 
his own received him not.’ ” * 

“ But, Miss Harson,” asked Malcolm, 
“ why didn’t the Lord Jesus come like a 
great king ? Then people would have 
known him right away.” 

“ For the same reason, Malcolm, that he 
told his murderers, ‘ My kingdom is not of 
this world.’ He did not wish to conquer 
them with earthly power, as he easily could 
have done, but with divine love. He wish- 
ed to draw the poor and the lowly to him, 
and he could do this better by taking upon 
himself a life of poverty. ‘ He became poor 
for our sakes, tliat we through him might 
be rich.’ 

“ Bethlehem was no longer a safe place 
for the holy Child, and again Joseph saw 
the vision of an angel in a dream — ‘ the 
angel of the Lord ’ who had appeared to 
him before — and heard the warning voice, 
‘Arise, and take the young child and his 
mother and flee into Egypt, and be thou 
there until I bring thee word: for Herod 
will seek the young child to destroy him.” 

* John i. 10, 1 1. 


2/6 SUNDAY EVENINGS AT ELMRIDGE. 

“ In the dead of night the journey was 
taken to Egypt, for there the wicked Herod 
had no power, and it had often been the 
refuge of those whom God protected. 
Nothing is told us in the Bible of the 
flight into Egypt ; we do not even know in 
what part of the country the holy family 
stayed, nor how they got there. In pict- 
ures of this journey the Blessed Virgin is 
always seated on an ass — an animal much 
used in the East for traveling because of 
his patience and endurance — and she holds 
the infant, while Joseph walks beside them. 
We have reason to suppose that they really 
did leave Bethlehem in this very way. 

“There are other pictures and many 
stories — called apocryphal, because they 
are only imaginary — which represent the 
animals of the country, dragons, lions, and 
leopards, bowing down to adore the holy 
Child; the roses of Jericho, so famous in 
Bible history, suddenly bursting into bloom 
wherever his footsteps trod ; the tall palm 
trees bending at his command that the dates 
which grow on their tops might be gathered 
for food ; and even the fierce and cruel rob- 


THE STAR OF BETHLEHEM. 2/; 

bers who plundered, and often murdered, 
travelers on those roads, awed by the 
strange beauty of the infant Jesus, fall 
down and worship him. The dumb idols, 
too, of the land of Egypt were said to rec- 
ognize the true God, and, falling from their 
high pedestals with a sudden crash, lay 
shattered into a thousand pieces, while 
many of the miracles of which the Bible 
does not speak until long after our Lord 
had reached the age of manhood are re- 
vealed in these stories as performed with 
a touch of his infant hand.” 

“ I wish it were all true,” said Clara ; “ it 
seems as if it ought to be.” 

“ But we cannot believe, dear, that any 
of these things are true, for the Bible ac- 
count plainly shows that our Saviour was 
at this time like any other helpless infant, 
and entirely dependent on his mothers 
tender care, 

‘ To whom, caressing and caressed, 

Clings the eternal Child.’ 


“ Meanwhile, something dreadful hap- 
pened in Bethlehem. When, after a little 


278 SUNDAY EVENINGS AT ELMRIDGE. 

time — how long we are not told — Herod 
found that the wise men did not return, 
he became savagely angry, and also more 
and more frightened and jealous because 
of this young King of the Jews ; so, instead 
of waiting to hear how he could best send 
and murder him, he resolved to make sure 
of him by killing all the little children in 
Bethlehem. He never would have thought 
that this King whom he feared had been 
born in the stable of the village khan, and 
it was the very last place to which he would 
have sent to look for him ; but from what 
the magi had told him in answer to his 
questions about the time when the won- 
derful star appeared to them, he knew that 
He who was born King of the Jews must 
still be an infant at his mother’s breast, as 
the children of Eastern countries are not 
weaned until they are two years old. The 
Gospel tells us that this wicked old man 
‘ sent forth and slew all the children that 
were in Bethlehem, and in all the coasts 
thereof, from two years old and under, ac- 
cording to the time which he had diligent- 
ly inquired of the wise men.’ ” 


THE STAR OF BETHLEHEM. 279 

“ I hate Herod,” gasped Edith as she 
buried her face on her governess’s shoul- 
der. 

“ So do I,” murmured Malcolm and Clara, 
almost equally tearful. 

“ I do not know that we can quite help 
hating him,” continued Miss Harson, “when 
we think of all the pretty little ones, whose 
mothers loved them so dearly, murdered 
in this dreadful manner, while ‘ lamenta- 
tion and weeping, and great mourning’ 
sounded through the streets of Jerusalem. 
These murdered children are called inno- 
cents and infant martyrs because, although 
unconsciously, they died for Christ, and we 
may learn from them that the youngest and 
weakest has something to do or to suffer 
for the Saviour: 


“ ‘ Oh, day by day each Christian child 
Has much to do without, within — 

A death to die for Jesus’ sake, 

A weary war to wage with sin. 

“ ‘ When deep within our swelling hearts 
The thoughts of pride and anger rise. 
When bitter words are on our tongues 
And tears of passion in our eyes, — 


28 o SUNDA V E VENINGS A T ELMRIDGE. 


« ‘ Then we may stay the angry blow, 

Then we may check the hasty word ; 

Give gentle answers back again, 

And fight a battle for our Lord. 

“ ‘ With smiles of peace and looks of love 
Light in our dwellings we may make. 

Bid kind good-humor brighten there, 

And do all still for Jesus’ sake. 

“ * There’s not a child so weak and small 
But has his little cross to take — 

His little work of love and praise 
That he may do for Jesus’s sake.’ ” 

Edith particularly liked these simple 
verses, which seemed to please the entire 
audience, and Miss Harson told her little 
pupil that she would give them to her to 
learn. 

“The savage Herod,” continued the 
young lady “ had not much longer to 
live, and some little time after the massa- 
cre of the innocents he died a dreadful 
death. 

“ ‘ When Herod was dead, behold, an 
angel of the Lord appeareth in a dream 
to Joseph in Egypt, saying. Arise, and take 
the young child and his mother, and go into 
the land of Israel ; for they are dead which 


THE STAR OF BETHLEHEM. 


281 


sought the young child’s life.’ But Arche- 
laus, the son of Herod, was now king of 
Judea, and, as he was as wicked a man as 
his father had been, Joseph was again warn- 
ed of God in a dream not to go to Bethle- 
hem, and he ‘ turned aside into the parts of 
Galilee.’ 

“ This was the northern part of Palestine, 
and had always been despised by the Jews 
and called ‘ Galilee of the Gentiles,’ because 
many Phoenicians and Arabs and Greeks 
dwelt there, and they were all Gentiles, or 
heathens. But the country is very pretty, 
with beautiful green fields and pleasant 
gardens and wells of clear water. Fruit 
is abundant, and the grapevine grows to 
an enormous size, its stem often measur- 
ing a foot and a half around, wiiile the 
thickly-twining branches form arches and 
ceilings of green leaves. No wonder that 
the Bible speaks of sitting under a vine, 
nor that the vine is so often used to express 
beauty and abundance. The clusters of 
grapes are two or three feet long, more 
than enough for a whole family’s supper. 

“ Joseph ‘ came and dwelt in a city called 


282 SUNDAY EVENINGS AT ELMRIDGE. 

Nazareth ; that it might be fulfilled which 
was spoken by the prophets, He shall be 
called a Nazarene.’ ‘ Nazarene ’ was a 
name of contempt, and it was given to our 
Saviour in scorn. In the time of the apos- 



NAZARETH. 


ties ‘ the sect of the Nazarenes ’ meant the 
followers of Christ. 

“ Nazareth was a small village of Galilee 
in which the Lord Jesus spent most of his 
earthly life. For this reason it is regarded 


THE STAR OF BETHLEHEM. 283 

with the same loving reverence as are Jeru- 
salem and Bethlehem, and we find that many 
things about it were pleasant and beautiful. 
It lay in the very lap of a circle of hills with 
rounded tops, and these hills of glittering 
limestone were covered in many places with 
wild fig trees and shrubs and very beauti- 
ful wild flowers. The gay hollyhock, which 
we plant in our gardens, was one of these 
flowers, and as we enjoy its bright colors 
we may think that on the same blossoms 
the Saviour often gazed at Nazareth. But 
perhaps the most beautiful of these wild 
blossoms were the lilies, of a bright scarlet 
or crimson color, with which the fields were 
so thickly studded that our Lord called 
the attention of his disciples to them with 
the words, ‘ Consider the lilies of the field, 
how they grow ; they toil not, neither do 
they spin ; and yet I say unto you. That 
even Solomon in all his glory was not 
arrayed like one of these.’ 

“The houses of Nazareth are built of 
white stone, with flat roofs, and they look 
very neat and comfortable. There are fig 
and olive trees in the gardens, as well as 


284 SUNDAY EVENINGS AT ELMRIDGE. 

oranges and pomegranates, and the latter 
have beautiful white and scarlet blossoms. 
There are no fences around these gardens, 
but hedges of cactus, and doves murmur 
sofdy in the trees, while birds with beauti- 
ful plumage fly about over the fields.” 

The little Kyles thought it must be 
“ lovely ” there, and they were ready to 
go on an immediate pilgrimage to Naz- 
areth ; but their governess laughingly told 
them that she could not possibly be ready 
before next week : 

“ This quiet and pretty village had been 
the home of Mary and Joseph before the 
birth of Jesus, for the Gospel of Luke says, 
after the account of the presentation in the 
temple, ‘ And when they had performed all 
things according to the law of the Lord, 
they returned into Galilee, to their own city 
of Nazareth.’ The same Gospel tells us, too, 
that ‘ the angel Gabriel was sent from God 
unto a city of Galilee, named Nazareth,’ to 
tell the Virgin Mary of the wondrous Son 
she would have. It was here that the 
holy family returned after their flight into 
Egypt, and Nazareth is always regarded as 


THE STAR OF BETHLEHEM. 285 

our Saviour’s native city. He taught here 
in the synagogue, and here he was dragged 
by his fellow-townsmen to the precipice on 
which the city stands, to be cast down from 
there and killed. ‘Jesus of Nazareth’ was 
written over his cross, and the name cannot 
be mentioned without bringing up many 
thoughts of our blessed Lord. Christian 
travelers in all ages have loved to visit this 
quiet spot and study what few remains can 
be found of our Saviour’s presence there. 
Many so-called ‘ holy places ’ are shown 
that are said to be connected with events 
in the life of Christ, but most of them are 
founded entirely upon legends. One place, 
though, called the ‘ Fountain of the Virgin,’ 
was no doubt often visited by Mary and 
‘the child Jesus’ while they lived at Naz- 
areth, for the women of the village have 
always gone there to draw water, as they 
do now. The path that leads there from 
the town has been trodden by countless 
feet, and groups of water-carriers are con- 
stantly going to and fro.” 


CHAPTER XIV. 


THE CHILDHOOD OF JESUS. 

LARA had just “ hoped there was 



something more about that lovely 
Nazareth,” when Miss Harson said, with a 
laughing glance at Edith, 

“We broke off rather suddenly, you re- 
member, last Sunday evening, but I think 
that it was not until Nazareth had been 
quite thoroughly described.” 

The small maiden looked quite abashed, 
for she had gone fast asleep, and just at the 
last of Miss Harson’s talk she had had an 
unexpected slide to the ground, which was 
anything but an agreeable surprise. “ Her 
little feelings were hurt,” as Malcolm, half 
tenderly, half teasingly, said, and she cried 
until she went to sleep again, which was 
after a not very long period. In vain Miss 
Harson pretended to examine and see if 
any bones were broken or if the white skin 


286 


THE CHILDHOOD OF JESUS. 287 

had all turned black and blue ; Edith cried 
on until her governess kissed her good- 
night and said that she hoped they would 
not need a boat in that room to get out of 
it in the morning. Then Edith seemed to 
think she had cried long enough, and set- 
tled herself comfortably for the night. 

“We reverently wonder," said Miss 
Harson, “just how our Saviour lived in 
Nazareth — that quiet little town among 
the hills that was his home for thirty years 
— but in all the four Gospels we can find 
very little about it. Luke alone tells us one 
incident of the boyhood of Jesus, and writes 
just one verse that describes his growth 
until he was twelve years old, but that 
verse tells us how in a sweet and holy life 
‘the child grew and waxed strong in spirit, 
filled with wisdom, and the grace of God 
was upon him.’ 

“ The more we study the word of God, 
the more we see that the Lord Jesus really 
came into the world like any other child. 
He did not come endowed with the knowl- 
edge and the power of which these silly 
legends are full, but, as Luke expressly 


288 SUNDAY EVENINGS A 7' ELMRIDGE. 

says, he grew wiser as he grew older, just 
as other children do. The last verse of the 
chapter says that ‘Jesus increased in wis- 
dom and stature,’ but his was a childhood 
of stainless and sinless beauty — the beauty 
of the lilies : ‘ as the flower of roses in 
the spring of the year, or as lilies by the 
waters.’ 

“ We may be very sure that had our 
Saviour’s childhood been marked by any- 
thing glorious or wonderful the four in- 
spired men who wrote the Gospels would 
certainly have told us of it. But ‘ the boy- 
Christ of the Gospels is simple and sweet, 
obedient and humble ; he is subject to his 
parents; he is occupied solely with the 
quiet duties of his home and of his age. 
He loves all men, and all men love the 
pure and gracious and noble Child. Al- 
ready he knows God as his Father, and 
the favor of God falls on him softly as the 
morning sunlight or the dew of heaven, 
and plays like an invisible aureole round 
his infantile and saintly brow. Unseen 
save in the beauty of heaven, but yet cov- 
ered with silver wings and with its feathers 


THE CHILDHOOD OF JESUS. 289 

like gold, the Spirit of God descended like 
a -dove and rested from infancy upon the 
holy Child.’ For, besides increasing in 
stature and in wisdom, Jesus increased ‘in 
favor with God and man.’ What a holy 
and beautiful childhood was his ! And 
what a comfort and a joy he must have 
been to all who dwelt with him !” 

“ I wish,” said Malcolm, thoughtfully, 
“that we could know just how the Lord 
Jesus looked and what he did when he 
was a boy.” 

“We can get some idea of this from 
travelers, I think,” replied his governess. 
“ One who has seen Nazareth and written 
very beautifully about it says that our Sa- 
viour’s life there was the life of all those 
of his age and station and place of birth. 
‘He lived as lived the other children of 
peasant parents in that quiet town, and in 
great measure as they live now. He who 
has seen the children of Nazareth in their 
red caftans and bright tunics of silk or cloth 
girded with a many-colored sash, and some- 
times covered with a loose outer jacket of 
white or blue — he who has watched their 


19 


290 SUNDAY EVENINGS AT ELM RIDGE. 

noisy and merry games and heard their 
ringing laughter as they wander about the 
hills of their little native vale or play in 
bands on the hillside beside their sweet 
and abundant fountain — may perhaps form 
some idea of how Jesus looked and played 
when he too was a child.’ 

“ Our Lord remembered and spoke of 
these happy days of childhood and of one 
of the favorite games of Jewish children 
when he said, ‘They are like unto children 
sitting in the market-place, and calling 
one to another and saying. We have piped 
unto you and ye have not danced ; we 
have mourned unto you and ye have not 
wept.’ ^ 

“ ‘ The traveler,’ says the same writer, 
‘ who has followed any of those children to 
their simple homes, and seen the scanty 
furniture, the plain but sweet and whole- 
some food, the uneventful, happy, patri- 
archal life, may form a vivid picture of the 
manner in which Jesus lived. Nothing can 
be plainer than these homes, with the doves 
sunning themselves on the white roofs and 

* Luke vii. 32. 


THE CHILDHOOD OF JESUS. 29 1 

the vines wreathing about them. The mats, 
or carpets, are laid loose along the walls; 
'shoes and sandals are taken off at the 
threshold ; from the centre hangs a lamp, 
which forms the only ornament of the 
room ; in some recess in the wall is placed 
the wooden chest painted with bright colors 
which contains the books or other posses- 
sions of the family ; on a ledge that runs 
around the wall within easy reach are rolled 
up the gay-colored quilts which serve as 
beds, and on the same ledge are ranged 
the earthen vessels for daily use ; near the 
door stand the large, common water-jars 
of red clay, with a few twigs and green 
leaves — often of aromatic shrubs — thrust 
into their mouths to keep the water cool. 
At mealtime a painted wooden stool is 
placed in the centre of the apartment, a 
large tray is put upon it, and in the middle 
of the tray stands the dish of rice and meat, 
or libbdn^ or stewed fruits, from which all 
help themselves in common. Both before 
and after the meal the servant or the 
youngest member of the family pours 
water over the hands from a brazen ewer 


292 SUNDAY EVENINGS AT ELMRIDGE. 

into a brazen bowl. So quiet, so simple, 
so humble, so uneventful, was the outward 
life of the family of Nazareth.’ 

“We know now,” continued Miss Har- 
son, “just how the parents of Jesus lived, 
and how bare and poorly furnished was the 
earthly home in which the Lord of the 
whole world condescended to dwell. There 
was nothing in it at all like what is shown by 
the false pictures in which Mary and the 
holy Child are dressed in magnificent robes 
shining with jewels and seated on thrones 
like monarchs, with gorgeous canopies over 
their heads, and our Saviour himself said, 

‘ My kingdom is nof of this world.’ 

“We read in the Gospels much of what 
the Lord Jesus did and said after he had 
lived in Nazareth for thirty years, but, as 
we have already seen, very little is told of 
him before that time. A very pious bishop 
who lived many hundred years ago thought 
so much about this that he often prayed 
very earnestly that God would manifest to 
him what Jesus had done in his youth, and 
after a while he had a very singular dream. 
He seemed to see a carpenter busy in his 


THE CHILDHOOD OF JESUS. 293 

workshop planing off a board, and beside 
him there was a little boy gathering up 
chips. Then came in a maiden dressed 
in green, who called them both to come to 
the meal and set porridge before them. 
All this the bishop saw very plainly in his 
dream, himself standing behind the door 
that he might not be perceived. Then the 
little boy began, and said, ‘ Why does that 
man stand there ? Shall he not also eat with 
us ?’ and this so frightened the dreamer that 
he awoke.’' 

The children liked this dream very much, 
and Clara asked if Miss Harson would not 
please tell them just one of the stories she 
had spoken of that were not true. 

“Yes,” was the smiling reply; “I have a 
short one here that might be true, for there 
is nothing extravagant about it. There is 
no name to it; it just begins: 

“Early one bright May morning, Jesus, 
then a little boy of ten or twelve years, 
awoke, and at once remembered that it was 
a holiday. His eyes, bright with the morn- 
ing light, sparkled yet more brightly at the 
thought. There would be no school, no 


294 SUNDAY EVENINGS AT ELMRIDGE. 

work ; all the people would keep the feast. 
He knew, too, that on that day the boys of 
his age would assemble betimes to play to- 
gether at the holy well. So, brimful of joy- 
ous expectation, he ran to ask his mother’s 
leave to go and join in the merry games. 
Soon he was on his way, and he quickened 
his steps when he came in sight of the 
troops of happy children running hither 
and thither in their sports. Drawing near- 
er, he stood still a little while, watching the 
games with pleased and eager eyes and 
heartily wishing he were taking part in 
them. Then he called out, 

“ ‘ Little children, shall I play with you, 
and will you play with me?’ 

“ Now, these boys and girls were the 
children of rich parents and lived in much 
finer houses than the one Jesus had for a 
home. They had handsome clothes, too, 
and everything of the best ; so they looked 
on the plainly-dressed stranger, the son of 
a poor carpenter, and bade him begone, 
saying, 

‘“We will not play with you, or with any 
such as you !’ 


THE CHILDHOOD OF JESUS. 295 

“What a rebuff was that! The poor 
sensitive little lad had not expected it, and 
his tender feelings were hurt. His eyes 
filled with tears, and, running home as 
fast as he could, he laid his head in his 
mother’s lap and sobbed out to her the 
whole story. 

“ Then Mary was angry with the ill-na- 
tured children, and told her son to go back 
and destroy them all by his word ; for she 
believed that her beautiful boy could do 
such things. But surely if he could have 
harbored that thought he would not have 
been beautiful, and so, when his mother 
spoke, her words drew away his thoughts 
from himself and the children who had 
grieved him. So he said that he must be 
gentle and helpful to people, and not de- 
stroy them. And that was the way with 
him to the very end ; for when, years after, 
the people were putting him to death on a 
cross, he bethought him again that they did 
not really know him, and prayed, 

“ ‘ Father, forgive them ; they know not 
what they do.’ ” 

“ Beautiful ! lovely !” exclaimed the de- 


296 SUNDAY EVENINGS AT ELM RIDGE. 

lighted audience. “ Oh, Miss Harson, 
please, some more.” 

“ Sweet and gentle and loving was this 
blessed Child, and the very life and sun- 
shine, we may be sure, of that humble Galil- 
ean home. There is a pretty legend which 
tells us how he made flowers bloom and 
birds sing in the midst of winter by a smile 
of love given to his mother. A beautiful 
meaning may be drawn from this. Love 
is the true sunshine, and all children can 
make a cold world blossom with it, after 
the example of the holy Child. We will 
return now to the real story of our 
Saviour’s childhood. 

“The time went on until twelve years 
had passed. A Jewish boy of twelve 
years was in some things almost a man. 
It was a very important period of his life. 
Among the Jews, when a boy was twelve 
years old, no matter how rich the parents 
might be, he was obliged to learn a trade 
of some kind, that he might be able to earn 
his living if he ever became poor, and our 
Saviour s trade was that of a carpenter. 

“The parents of Jesus visited Jerusalem 


THE CHILDHOOD OF JESUS. 297 

every year at the feast of the passover, 
because God had commanded the Jews 
that this feast should always be solemnly 
kept in remembrance that the Angel of 
Death passed over the houses of the Israel- 
ites when all the first-born in the houses 
of the Egyptians were slain. 

“ It was a very important feast among 
the Jews, and they would take long jour- 
neys to keep it in Jerusalem, the holy city; 
and when Jesus was twelve years old, Mary 
and Joseph went up to Jerusalem, ‘ after the 
custom of the feast.’ This year the child 
Jesus was taken with them for the first 
time. To go from so quiet a place as 
Nazareth to the great city of Jerusalem, 
through a land where wonderful places in 
the history of the Jews were constantly 
pointed out to him, was a most exciting 
event, and the first visit of the young Naz- 
arene to that magnificent temple which had 
been the pride of his nation for so long 
was a thing never to be forgotten. 

“ Nazareth is about eighty miles from 
Jerusalem, and the season of the passover 
is there the middle of spring, when the 


298 SUNDAY EVENINGS AT ELM RIDGE, 

country wears its brightest green and the 
edges of the cornfields on both sides of the 
road would be woven, like the high priest’s 
robe, with the blue and purple and scarlet 
of innumerable flowers. It took three days 
to reach the holy city, and the first glimpse 
of it above the walls would be the glittering 
roof of the great temple. 

“Jerusalem was always crowded with 
strangers at the time of the passover, and 
there were more than the houses could 
hold ; so a great many of these visitors, 
who came from all parts of the East, had 
to make their own houses. These were 
little booths, or tents, of wickerwork, mats 
and interwoven leaves, which they could 
put up whenever it was convenient. At 
the end of the feast these little houses 
were easily cleared away, and then, with 
their mules and horses and oxen and 
camels, those who lived at a distance 
would form themselves into a laree car- 
avan and start on their homeward jour- 
ney. This journey home was very pleas- 
ant and lively in such a large company. 

“At this passover, where Jesus was 


THE CHILDHOOD OF JESUS. 299 

present for the first time, he ‘ tarried be- 
hind in Jerusalem’ after his parents, with 
the rest of the company, had started on 
their homeward way, ‘and Joseph and his 
mother knew not of it.’ 

“ Among so many people a child would 
not at first be missed, as his parents would 
naturally suppose him to be in some other 
part of the caravan, and it was a whole 
day before the absence of Jesus was dis- 
covered. In vain did his parents seek for 
him ‘among their kinsfolk and acquaint- 
ance :’ he was not to be found ; and, as the 
country was then in an unsettled state and 
dangerous, especially for a child, it was 
feared that he might have come to harm. 

“With anxious hearts Joseph and Mary 
turned back again to Jerusalem, looking, 
as they went, for the lost boy, who had 
always been so loving and obedient. Back 
to the great city they went, and into all the 
places were a child would be likely to linger, 
stopping now at this house, now at that, to 
inquire of every friend and relative who had 
seen the missing one last, until at length, 
when almost in despair, the thought came 


300 SUNDAY EVENINGS AT ELM RIDGE, 

to them that he might possibly have strayed 
into the temple and lost himself there. It 
was three days since they had began their 
search, and they had now looked every- 
where else that could be thought of. They 
went last to the place where they should 
have gone first, for they found him in the 
temple, but not at all as they expected to 
find him — lost and frightened — for he was 
‘ sitting in the midst of the doctors, both 
hearing them and asking them questions.’ 

“These learned doctors, or teachers, of 
the law who assembled in the temple were 
held in great reverence among the Jews. 
They were also called ‘ rabbi,’ or ‘ master,’ 
and it was their business to teach the peo- 
ple the law of Moses. There were many 
learned and good men at that time among 
these doctors, but they were all astonished 
at the understanding and the answers of 
the divine boy. He was modest as well as 
intelligent and always meek and lowly of 
heart, and he was probably seated at the 
feet of his teachers on the beautifully- 
colored mosaic floor of the temple, while 
the place where they sat was raised above 


THE CHILDHOOD OF JESUS. 30I 

him. In this way Paul sat at the feet of the 
Rabbi Gamaliel, that he might learn of him, 
and it was the usual position of scholars in 
the East. 

“ The lo-wly couple, who were very much 
in awe of the learned priests and doctors, 
were amazed, and almost frightened, to find 
the little Jesus in such great company, and 
to hear him actually talking to those rever- 
end men, many of whom had long flowing 
beards that were white with age. His 
mother said to him, ‘Son, why hast thou 
thus dealt with us ? behold, thy father and 
I have sought thee sorrowing.’ Our Lord’s 
reply may seem a strange one at his early 
age : ‘ How is it that ye sought me ? wist 
ye not that I must be about my Father’s 
business ?’ but it is really one of perfect 
respect. 

“ Mary and Joseph did not yet under- 
stand the holy Child, but they were satis- 
fied to have found him again, ‘and he went 
down with them and came to Nazareth, and 
was subject unto them ; but his mother kept 
all these sayings in her heart.’ ” 

“Is that all ?” was the disappointed ques- 


302 SUNDAY EVENINGS AT ELMRIDGE. 

tion, as Miss Harson seemed to have come 
to a stop. 

“Very nearly all,” she replied, “for the 
Scriptures tell us nothing more of our 
Saviour until he ‘began to be about thirty 
years of age,’ and I wish you to study his 
life after this in the very words of the 
Bible. We know, however, from various 
things that Jesus was more carefully edu- 
cated than most Jewish boys of the humble 
classes. As the child of pious Jews, he 
was probably taught by Mary and Joseph 
to read the Shema from Deuteronomy 
and the Hallel from the Psalms, besides 
‘ the simpler parts of those holy books on 
whose pages his divine wisdom was here- 
after to pour such floods of light.’ Jewish 
children were not taught to write, as the 
art of writing was but little known in the 
East, but John tells us that ‘Jesus stooped 
down, and with his finger wrote on the 
ground,’ which shows that he had learned 
this accomplishment. 

“ It has been beautifully said that the 
schools in which Jesus learned were not 
the schools of the scribes, or doctors, but 


THE CHILDHOOD OF JESUS. 


303 


the school of holy obedience, of sweet 
contentment, of unalloyed simplicity, of 
stainless purity, of cheerful toil. The 
books which he studied were the books 
of God, in Scripture, in Nature and in 
life, and the book of God within him, writ- 
ten in the fleshly tables of his heart. 

“ And now we will finish the story of the 
holy Child with these beautiful verses 

“ ‘ Once, in royal David’s city, 

Stood a lonely cattle-shed 
Where a mother laid her baby 
In a manger for his bed : 

Mary was that mother mild ; 

Jesus Christ, her little child. 

He came down to earth from heaven 
Who is God and Lord of all, 

And his shelter was a stable, 

And his cradle was a stall ; 

With the poor and mean and lowly 
Lived on earth our Saviour holy. 

** ‘ And through all his wondrous childhood 
He would honor and obey. 

Love and watch, the lowly maiden 
In whose gentle arms he lay. 

Christian children all must be 
Mild, obedient, good, as he. 

“ ‘ For he is our childhood’s pattern ; 

Day by day, like us, he grew ; 


304 SUNDAY EVENINGS AT ELM RIDGE. 


He was little, weak and helpless ; 

Fears and smiles, like us, he knew ; 
And he feeleth all our sadness, 

And he shareth in our gladness. 

“ ‘ And our eyes at last shall see him, 
Through his own redeeming love; 
For that Child so dear and gentle 
Is our Lord in heaven above, 

And he leads his children on 
To the place where he is gone. 

“ * Not in the poor lowly stable. 

With the oxen standing by, 

We shall see him, but in heaven, 

Set at God’s right hand on high, 
When, like stars, his children crowned. 
All in white, shall stand around.’ ” 


THE END, 




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